


A Stranger on the Train

by Papillon87



Series: Melody and Light [1]
Category: ASTRO (Band), Block B
Genre: AU, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Jinjin is in a band, M/M, MJ is an architect, Moonbin and Rocky have a dance studio, Original Character(s), References to Sex, Romance, Sanha is 8 - sorry!, Slow Burn, Some Swearing, cameos from other groups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2019-06-26 20:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 50,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15670494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papillon87/pseuds/Papillon87
Summary: The sound of the braking train woke him up from his slumber and he scrambled up hastily, realising they would be arriving at the station in a minute and he’d better hurry up. He yanked his duffel bag from the overhead locker - and watched in horror as it collided with a man who was getting to his feet in front of him.“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Myungjun stumbled over his own words, completely mortified, as the tall stranger turned around to see who the hell whacked him on the head with a piece of luggage.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Existential_forest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Existential_forest/gifts).



> We all need soft Myungbin in our lives!

Myungjun leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. The train would be arriving in Busan in 20 minutes; there was still time for a quick nap. It had been a long weekend.

Tomorrow was Monday. He suppressed the inner groan at the thought of having to go to work in the morning. It’s not that he hated his job, not at all, but when he graduated as an architect he imagined himself being part of glamorous projects that involved shiny offices or beautiful homes for super-rich, or possibly both. None of his dreams featured schools and kindergartens. Kindergartens, for goodness’ sake. Myungjun had nothing against the education sector or kids as such – he loved his nephew after all - but designing schools was no fun at all. Functional over beautiful every time. How sad.

Being the youngest member of the team sucked, he decided. It meant he always ended up with the short end of the stick. Any job that was even remotely exciting went to someone else, someone senior, someone with _more experience._

The logical part of his brain knew that this was the natural order of things, that he wouldn’t be the last in the pecking order forever – but the logical part of his brain was not functioning particularly well on this grey Sunday evening when his head was still a bit sore after two days full of partying and his heart still a bit sore from envy.

He had looked forward to this weekend, he really did. He hasn’t seen Jinwoo for five months and it was great to catch up. He missed his best friend; Busan wasn’t what it used to be since Jinwoo moved to Seoul two years ago. Myungjun understood the capital offered more opportunities for musicians; he was genuinely pleased that Jinwoo’s band The Existential Forest were getting the exposure they needed, happy to see Jinwoo succeeding, he truly was.

He went to see them on Friday; a gig in one of those trendy clubs that looked grubby and dark but it was all part of a rather clever marketing aiming at the young and edgy. The Existential Forest fitted right in, Jinwoo’s dark rapping a perfect complement to the darkness of the ambience.

The night was a success, the after-party accordingly wild. Myungjun enjoyed a privileged position of being Jinwoo’s eldest friend and was introduced to everybody. The atmosphere was buzzing, drinks flowed freely and Myungjun soon mingled with the band members, their friends and acquaintances, joking and laughing, the apples of his cheeks flushed from too much soju and too much harmless flirting with random strangers.

And yet.

Despite the fun, the drinks, the smiles and jokes, he couldn’t help but feeling a little envious after having seen Jinwoo on stage, the happiness radiating off him as if he turned on a secret switch that was illuminating his whole being from within. And he couldn’t help but feel another pang of jealousy when, several hours later, both of them sitting of the front steps of the club and pleasantly buzzing from the copious amount of soju, Jinwoo suddenly leaned over and whispered a little breathlessly that he thought he had a crush on their band manager and he thought that Dongmin liked him too. 

Myungjun had met Dongmin backstage, just before the performance, and later spent good fifteen minutes chatting to him at the party. His usual sass and easy-going demeanour deserted him completely when face to face with Dongmin’s ethereal beauty. People like Dongmin should be models, thought Myungjun, not accountants working in the music business – but that’s what Dongmin was, apparently, and in the course of their conversation he discovered the other’s dry sense of humours, sharp brain and, what surprised Myungjun the most, a really sweet, caring nature. 

“Where on earth did you stumble upon him, you lucky bastard?” he grabbed Jinwoo after Dongmin was waved over by the club owner to be introduced to a guest of some importance or the other.

“My irresistible personality,” grinned Jinwoo, “I attract the best of the best.”

And attract he did, judging by the soft looks Dongmin was casting in Jinwoo’s direction during the performance and which now, after his drunken confession, made much more sense.

“I’m so happy for you, bro,” he slung his arm around Jinwoo’s shoulders and he was, he truly was.

He really was.

The sound of the braking train woke him up from his slumber and he scrambled up hastily, realising they would be arriving at the station in a minute and he’d better hurry up. He yanked his duffel bag from the overhead locker - and watched in horror as it collided with a man who was getting to his feet in front of him.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he stumbled over his own words, completely mortified, as the tall stranger turned around to see who the hell whacked him on the head with a piece of luggage.

_Oh my God._

Looking at Myungjun was a pair of green eyes so beautiful he felt he was falling into a bottomless well. 

Drowning.

Everything else around ceased to exist. Myungjun forgot about his bag, the embarrassment, the fact that he needed to wake up at 6:30 the next morning, forgot about Jinwoo and Dongmin and stared.

The stranger in front of him, a tall young man, his sharp features slightly feline, held his gaze for a moment and Myungjun felt hypnotised. It was like looking at a sleek, beautiful cat.

Realising belatedly that he was probably behaving like an utter idiot, Myungjun mumbled another apology. 

“It’s ok, no problem at all,” the cat stranger giggled and Myungjun watched in awe as his face was suddenly transformed by a cute puppy-like smile. “Anyway, you seem to be travelling lightly so no harm done,” he gestured at the bag.

Myungjun threw him an embarrassed smile. “Short visit. Saw an old friend in Seoul over the weekend.” He tried really hard to sound coherent, nonchalant even, but it was rather difficult given the proximity of those eyes and that smile.

“Had a good time?” The green eyes were still locked with his, the sweet smile still there. Myungjun found it hard to form any sort of response and was saved from further mortifying moments by a middle-aged man clearing his throat behind him. The sound made them both jump a little. 

Of course. By now the train arrived at the station and the 50-something businessman standing behind them would much rather depart than be witnessing Myungjun’s burning ears and his stammering.

“I’d better be going then,” Myungjun finally pulled himself together, slung the offending bag over his shoulder and picked up a large folder from his seat.

“Uh, right. Yes.” To his surprise, Myungjun saw the other’s cheeks blush. The cat stranger (Myungjun decided if was a fitting name for him) looked much younger all of a sudden. He opened his mouth, hesitated, then changed his mind, turned abruptly and made his way out of the carriage. Myungjun followed, eyes glued to the man’s rucksack, feeling a strange feeling of loss.

_I don’t even know his name._

As he left the train, he cast one more longing look at the black rucksack in front of him and prepared to dive into the sea of rushing people when the cat stranger swivelled around and Myungjun narrowly avoided another collision – this time with the man’s chest.

He gasped lightly and came to a halt.

“Did the green eyes freak you out?” The young man was eyeing Myungjun rather intently, his eyes looking even more striking in the crowd of hundreds of people who all seemed ordinary all of a sudden.

“What?” The question caught Myungjun completely unawares.

“I’m sorry, did they freak you out – they eyes?”

“Uh, no, they didn’t.” _I fell in love with them._

“Shame.” The young man looked a little crestfallen.

“What?” _God, I’m so eloquent. Way to go to leave a great first impression._

The cat stranger smiled shyly and ducked his head a little. “It was a bet. They are contacts. My friend Minhyuk made me wear them for one whole day. He said they made me look interesting. I think they are just freaky. But nobody today looked even remotely shocked, apart from you. You were my only hope. Looks like I lost the bet then.”

“Well, I kind of guessed they were contacts,” lied Myungjun.

Strictly speaking, guessing requires functioning brain cells and for the last five minutes he didn’t have any left that could be classified as such - but the beautiful stranger didn’t need to know that.

The man in front of him stood completely still for couple of seconds – God, he really looks like a cat, thought Myungjun – as if steeling himself to do something, then blurted out suddenly, “Would you like to go for a drink tonight?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Myungjun wasn’t great at confessions. He only tried to confess once, in the last year of middle school, and the object of his affection, Hyungmin, didn’t even get what Myungjun had meant and took it as a joke.

“God, MJ, for a moment you got me there! You really crack me up.”

“I know!” Myungjun forced himself to laugh, despite his bleeding heart. “I got you there, didn’t I?”

“Could you imagine us as a couple? That would be hilarious!” Hyungmin was doubling over with laughter.

Both of them spent the next five minutes in fits of hilarity, slapping each other’s shoulders. Myungjun thought he deserved an Oscar for the performance. Only back at home behind a locked door, he allowed himself to cry. Apparently he was so ridiculous that the thought of being a boyfriend material didn’t even cross Hyungmin’s mind. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

With hindsight though, Myungjun thought the turn of events extremely lucky. He would have been teased no end if it became public knowledge that Myungjun, the class clown, liked boys as well, not just girls. After that he decided to keep his mouth shut and his heart under a lock at least until uni where he figured the playing field would be bigger and a scope for embarrassment in terms of bumping into exes and crushes slightly smaller.

The plan paid off. With his good looks, charming personality and eagerness to participate in anything, he made a lot of friends and he made them quickly. There was no shortage of flirting on campus during the day and in bars at night. He got much better at romance and break-ups. The secret was not to take anything too seriously, he found. Myungjun loved university life. He had fun, period. Although he didn’t get much better at confessions (others tended to confess to him, rather than him having to do anything), he got rather good at turning down any unwanted advances smoothly. A very useful skill when fellow students of both genders often mistook his warm smile, shining eyes and an easy laughter for something more.

As he grew older and swapped the lectures for his first job, a little more cautiousness crept into the way he handled his relationships. He was wise enough to learn from other people’s mistakes. An office romance, he observed, tended to complicate things, especially if it didn’t work out. Myungjun learned to keep the fun and work element strictly separate. He honed his turning down skills to perfection; the couple of work colleagues he had to let down, he did so gently and they managed to stay friends. The dual personality he cultivated suited him just fine – a calm, friendly, responsible young man from Monday to Friday, and a silly party animal over the weekend, carefree and wild, devouring his beautiful hook ups of both genders (he was a sucker for pretty in life) like delicious cakes lining his Friday and Saturday nights.

The jealousy at Jinwoo and Dongmin that got under his skin like stings of a sea urchin that weekend unnerved him a little. A couple of years ago, even a couple of months ago, two days of partying would have been heaven. Drinks, dancing, making out with random strangers, maybe something more – it would have been all he wanted, all he needed to be blissfully happy. But lately, the old definition of fun didn’t elicit the same thrill, the same lightness it used to in the past. The fun of picking up a beautiful boy on Friday for one night, no strings attached, has lost its allure somewhat lately. It wasn’t the prime target anymore. He wanted more, he wanted something longer that one night or couple of weeks at best. Could it be real love that he was striving for now? The thought scared him a little. True love meant confessing, it meant soul baring. Myungjun wasn’t sure he was ready for that. But subconsciously he found himself slowing down. For the last couple of months, he more often than not went home alone after a night of clubbing. Suddenly it seemed he couldn’t find anybody he liked enough to take home. Anybody he _liked_ at all.

If there was one person that was genuinely pleased about his gradual transformation, it was his 8-year old nephew Sanha. Fewer hangovers meant fewer broken promises and more visits. For the last couple of months Myungjun found himself increasingly often in his sister’s spacious living room on Sunday, playing cards or silly video games with his nephew and having a quiet cup of coffee with his sister and her husband. Myungsoon was genuinely pleased to see her baby brother more often. Seven years his senior, she practically raised him after their mother left them when Myungjun was eleven. Their dad didn’t handle the divorce very well, buried himself in work to cope with the heartbreak, left both of them to their own devices and Myungjun in serious doubt whether true love really existed.

Myungsoon did her best to make sure her little brother wasn’t scarred for life and Myungjun was eternally grateful to her as he grew older. The down side was, in his eyes at least, she remained overprotective even when he didn’t need it anymore. His wild nightlife used to worry her. She would try to talk to him many times, to no avail.

“I’m just having fun, big sis, don’t worry.” He saw she didn’t believe him - it pained him, but not enough to change his ways.

Now she watched with genuine pleasure how Myungjun was calming down. “That was no way to find true love. I’m glad you are changing,” she told him one day when it was just the two of them, Sanha having gone with his dad to the zoo. “I was worried about you.”

“I am not looking for true love, it doesn’t exist. So there was no need to worry at all,“ he smiled.

“You don’t need to look for it, it will find you when you’re least expecting it to happen.” 

…………………..

Today, standing on a busy platform, steady streams of people milling around like nervous ants, he badly needed a good turn-down line, and he needed it quickly. He really didn’t have time for this stranger who was asking him out, with striking eyes and a cute smile that was tugging at his heartstrings. He had plans for tonight and he was already running late. The old Myungjun would have gone with the flow, no matter what. The new, responsible Myungjun kept his promises and honoured his commitments. The new Myungjun didn’t hurt the ones who loved him.

“I’m sorry,” he said slowly, a well-practiced rueful smile softening the blow, “I would love to go for a drink but I can’t. I have plans for tonight already.”

_Well done Myungjun, you are a responsible adult._

The beautiful cat-like face in front of him fell slightly.

“Maybe tomorrow?” Flash of hope in those green eyes.

_God, I don’t want to wait till tomorrow. I can’t wait till tomorrow. I can’t._

“Or we could go for a quick coffee now - if you want to? It’s up to you.” _Why am I saying this? What am I doing???_

“Coffee sounds cool.” The cat stranger smiled so brightly, his eyes all but disappeared.

_If I don’t go home to get changed after the coffee I can still make it. I have the present with me._

“Great,” he smiled back, butterflies in his stomach fluttering their wings ever so slightly. “Shall we? I know a great place round the corner from here.”

……………..

He picked Bogotá, a small independent coffee shop, tucked in a side street just outside the station, one that Myungjun preferred to the obvious chains that were forcing themselves down everybody’s throat, their logos loud and screaming, their coffee trying very hard to be unique but tasting so non-descript.

The interior of the café was cosy and a little shabby but the smell was intoxicating. They approached the counter and were greeted by a beautiful boy with a smile as bright as a sunny morning in July.

“Hi, how can I help?” Myungjun couldn’t help but beam back. Bogotá was not only renown amongst the coffee connoisseurs for its exquisite Columbian beans they used for making their coffee, they were also known as the “pretty boys’ café”. The owner’s criteria for hiring his employees were clear to everyone who entered. Myungjun would lie if he said it wasn’t a factor in his decision making while picking a place to go today.

The menu was scribbled on the blackboard behind the counter, no size options available. 

Myungjun knew what he would have (always cappuccino as a default option or double espresso if he needed to sober up quickly) but saw his companion hesitate. “You ok there?”

The boy was eyeing the blackboard a little warily. “I usually have caramel macchiato but I can’t see it anywhere.”

“That’s because they don’t serve it here. That stuff contains more corn syrup than coffee.” _God, why am I lecturing him? We have spent the entirety of five minutes together and I already sound like an insufferable know-it-all. Pull yourself together._

“I’m sure you could ask for one though,” he added hastily, “they would be more than happy to make one for you.” 

The green eyes smiled at him. “It’s ok, I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

_Phew, nice save, Myungjun. Don’t screw it up now._

“Could we have two cappuccinos then, please.” Myungjun turned to the waiter, who was still waiting patiently and smiling at them, and pulled out his wallet. “My treat because I dragged you over here and, on top of that, I’m making you drink something you haven’t chosen.” He turned on his 1000-watt smile, added a wink and watched with pleasure how his companion’s cheeks blushed pink. He felt the old thrill of the hunt.

_I know you asked me out, beautiful, but I’m rather good at the game we are playing right now._

“Of course, “the waiter beamed at them. “Please, take a seat, the coffee will be right with you.”

They have chosen a little table for two near the window.

“So,” he smiled into the green eyes in front of him, “I think it’s time for introductions. I’m Kim Myungjun.”

“ I’m Moon Bin.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

The waiter brought them two cappuccinos, their foam sporting smiley faces, bowed quickly and left. Myungjun inhaled the aroma and felt almost sorry for destroying the artwork as he stirred in the sugar.

They sat in silence for a while, eyes locked, Myungjun taking in the stranger’s cute face, dark hair falling onto his forehead in messy waves, his lips – _I wonder how they taste_ – and only stopping when the other’s face turned pink and Bin averted his eyes, smiling shyly.

“So, what’s the deal with the contacts?” Myungjun pulled himself together. _Stop ogling him. That’s not the way to get lucky and you want this one, he is drop-dead gorgeous._

“It was just a silly bet.” Bin waved his hand dismissively with a grin. “They belong to my performance costume. Long story,” he added when Myungjun raised the eyebrows quizzically, “ but after we finished we went a bit over the top with the celebrations. Don’t really remember who came up with the bet but Minhyuk got really enthusiastic. He is rather difficult to refuse sometimes.”

“And nobody stared at all? The whole day?”

“Well, you stared the most. But my sister’s boyfriend, whom I met today for the first time, came second, I guess. Not shocked, I wouldn’t say that, more like disgusted.” He chuckled quietly. “Sua, my sister, wanted to surprise me and didn’t tell me she would be bringing him along when we agreed to meet. She is in her second year studying journalism at Sungkyunkwan University. She is the brainy one out of the two of us. I haven’t seen her for about six months. It was really nice to be with her again but I don’t think Jongsoo, her new boyfriend, liked me. I’m pretty sure he thought I looked like a complete moron.”

“Why didn’t you take them out then?” Myungjun was trying very hard not to laugh.

Bin shrugged his shoulders, grinning. “A bet is a bet. Anyway, would you mind if I took them out now? It feels weird wearing them when I’m talking to you.”

The last words made Myungjun blush, “No, of course not, go ahead.”

Bin got up and headed for the toilets. Myungjun, left alone, felt his palms getting slightly sweaty. How will Bin look like when he comes back? 

_What if the magic was just those green contacts?_

Myungjun’s leg under the table started bouncing nervously. I will not look up, he told himself, not until he is back at the table. I won’t. But he couldn’t help casting furtive glances across the room anyway, and telling himself off every time he did so. 

_Stop that, you fool._

He has just finished shredding a paper napkin to pieces when he heard a quiet giggle above his head, “ Are you going to play ddakji with that?”

Bin was standing in front of him, grinning. He slung his rucksack over the back of his chair and sat down.

For the second time that day, Myungjun had to stare. Bin’s eyes were the warmest chocolate brown and he wore glasses. Glasses for goodness sake. He looked unbearably cute. Myungjun’s heart skipped a beat. The magic was still there.

Bin smiled shyly, “I must look different. I feel weird with glasses on. Because of work I’m used to wearing contacts most of the time. Not the green ones though,” he laughed nervously. He took off the glasses and rubbed his eyes.

Myungjun realised he must have been staring rather idiotically and making Bin uncomfortable.

He cleared his throat, “You still look like you.”

Bin’s smile was so pure that Myungjun felt his ears catching fire. _God, he is getting to me._

“What do you do for work if you can’t wear glasses?” he asked quickly to hide his embarrassment.

“It’s not so much I can’t, I just find it uncomfortable. I have a dance studio with Minhyuk. The bet guy. It’s hard to teach people to dance if after every spin I have to pick up my glasses off the floor.” Another flash of the cute smile. “We teach contemporary, hip hop, classical ballet, ballroom, whatever you want,” he grinned, “even pole dancing.”

“Pole dancing? You… teach pole dancing?” Myungjun tried to ignore how dry his throat suddenly felt.

“Me? God no,” Bin threw his head back in laughter, “we have three more teachers. Jungkook mainly teaches contemporary and hip hop; Mina is in charge of all ballet classes, kids and adults, and Lisa, who is Minhyuk’s and my partner for ballroom and latin. She is the one who teaches pole dancing. She is amazing. One day she tried to teach us guys a little, it was hilarious. She got a bit cross towards the end when we were just taking a piss. Jungkook was rather good at it though.”

Myungjun’s head was almost spinning from the information overload. “Ballroom dancing? Wow. I’m trying to picture you in a tuxedo waltzing around.”

“Not really,” giggled Bin, “I do mainly hip hop but I teach couple of salsa classes to help Minhyuk. He and Lisa are our main ballroom and latin gurus but Minhyuk is working on couple of solo projects right now and salsa has been really in demand lately so I’ve stepped in. It’s nice to be on the dance floor again. For the last year or so, as we grew a lot, I spent more time in the office dealing with paperwork than in the studio. Jungkook had to increase his hours and take over half of my classes.”

“Surely that’s a good sign?”

“Oh, I know. I’m glad we are doing well. When we started four years ago, it was just the two of us. We were still high school kids and I used to wake up in the middle of the night shitting myself that the whole thing would be a massive failure.“

“You were in high school when you started your business?” Myungjun’s interest was piqued. Suddenly Bin ceased to be just a cute face; suddenly Myungjun felt a stirring of something else – genuine curiosity, respect? He wasn’t sure how but suddenly he wanted to get to know Bin, he wanted to find out things about him, things beyond how his skin would feel under his fingers, how his body would look like without the oversized t-shirt he was wearing.

“I wouldn’t call it a business at that time, it used to be us teaching a bunch of kids under a bridge – literally – for free or whatever they could pay us, sometimes a handful of coins. After a year we had enough money to pay a deposit for a small studio though and we started charging money and doing it properly. And we grew. That’s when my parents started taking interest.”

“Your parents supported you as a dancer?”

“Well,” Bin paused for a moment, his look thoughtful, “they didn’t initially, mainly because they thought the whole idea was a lot of nonsense and that we would never get the dance school thing off the ground. But I worked hard - we worked hard - to prove them wrong. I made sure I kept my grades, I didn’t get into any trouble – so they couldn’t exactly forbid it while I was at school, they had no leverage. After finishing high school three years ago – oh how cute, he is a baby, thought Myungjun - I moved out and lived in the dance studio for more than a year. I really wanted to succeed, without my parents’ help. It wasn’t exactly easy. Minhyuk is one year younger than me; he was still going to school and living with his parents at the time. I think the food he would often bring from home saved me from starving that year. After the rent for the studio was paid every month, there wasn’t usually much left. I took on other day jobs as well, anything just to get by,” he shrugged his shoulders, “you know how it is.”

Myungjun didn’t know. His father, an orthopaedic surgeon, used to earn enough money to support his children while he and his sister were young, and during his time at university Myungjun landed a nice job as a personal shopper for a big department store. He was a poor student, like everyone around him in the dorms, but he never went hungry. If the money was a little tight, he went to see his sister, a young successful layer at the time, who would feed him and send him on his way with a week’s worth of food.

He eyed Bin with a newfound respect. “ You said your parents got interested eventually.”

Bin laughed. It was a beautiful laugh, sweet and carefree, as if he was born into royalty and never went to bed hungry. “I think they realised after a while that I wouldn’t let go of the whole idea and that I was actually rather good at what I was doing. My parents might not understand a lot about dancing but they sure as hell know a lot about running a successful business. They called a proper meeting, with me and Minhyuk,” he giggled as if the memory was still a source of hilarity to him, “they even invited their accountant and said they are prepared to invest in our business if we can show them some sort of a business plan to demonstrate that the business is viable.”

“Bloody hell, your parents are hardcode.” 

“I know, they are pretty amazing actually." Bin smiled fondly. "They run a big import-export company. Built it from scratch together after they met. I think my Mum is even more ruthless than my Dad. I didn’t sleep for a week before we met, getting all the paperwork ready. I had to learn all about the rate of growth, turnover, target demographics, research our competition, prepare plans for expansion, all that. It was the fastest business course ever. Half an hour before the meeting I was throwing up in the bathroom, I was so exhausted and scared.“

“Did you get the money though?”

“We did. It changed everything. The moment we could breathe, I started checking out universities and business courses. I’m now in my first year at Pukyuong University. I’m probably the oldest business major in the year but better late than never.”

“Wow.” Myungjun, mouth agape, eyed the young man in front of him. What kind of an enigma did he meet today? 

“Right now we are doing fine. I know I am lucky to have parents with enough money to help me out. Although it comes with strings attached,” he winked and Myungjun’s heart ceasing to beat for a moment. “Their company is a major shareholder in our business. In reality it means that everything bigger we want to buy, we need to run it past them. They decide if we re-invest the profit we make or we can pay ourselves some dividends.”

“Jeez, you do sound like a business major,” grinned Myungjun.

“I’m sorry, I must be boring you to death,” Bin had the grace to blush and Myugjun decided the sight of his pink cheeks was worth the lecture. “In reality it’s much more fun. Like when we were trying to persuade my Dad to agree to equip one room for pole dancing. I don’t think he ever recovered from that,” he chuckled at the memory. “But enough about me. I feel like I’m the only one who’s been talking the whole time. What do you do?” He wrapped his slim fingers around the coffee mug and Myungjun felt his throat constrict under Bin’s smiling gaze.

“I’m afraid my job is not as exciting as yours. I’m an architect.”

“Wow, that’s pretty cool. So you bring beauty to the streets of Busan, “Bin spread his arms wide in a dramatic gesture.

“Nothing as glamorous as that. Schools mainly.” God I sound boring even to myself.

“Aww, that’s so cute!” Myungjun watched in awe as the other’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “What was the most interesting or crazy thing you designed for a school?

Myungjun was genuinely surprised. Nobody ever asked him that, nobody ever thought schools were cool. He paused for a moment, mind blank. Has he ever done anything interesting at all?

“I did a school,” he started after a moment’s pause, “for children with special needs about two years ago. Their old building was too small, the school was expanding – and the new wing had a sensory playground. That was the most fun thing I ever worked on. It was an atrium within the school building so it was outside, direct sunlight and all. It had plants, water features, things that made sounds; the walls were made from various materials, different to touch. I even designed one of the sound-making toys myself, and the school had it made because they liked my idea. I met some pretty amazing people while working on it, really passionate about what they were doing, passionate about the kids.” He smiled to himself, the memories warming his soul. “I was really proud of what I did there, “ he added quietly. The long forgotten sense of achievement nearly made him well up and he blinked and stared at the table in front of him until he felt it was safe to look up and meet Bin’s gaze.

“That’s pretty amazing. Have you ever visited, after it was built, to see if the kids liked it?” Bin seemed genuinely interested and Myungjun was getting more and more flustered. 

_How is he so freaking sweet? It would be too much if it weren’t adorable._

He shook his head, “I wanted to go and visit, the deputy head, a very nice lady, more or less invited me to come; but you know how it is…” He left the rest hanging.

Chiming of an old grandfather clock in the corner brought his attention to a sharp focus. One look at the time made him squirm with guilt. 

_Oh my, I’m gonna be so late!_

He inhaled slowly and run his fingers through the tousled locks of his hair. “I really hate to do this but I’m afraid I have to go. There is somewhere I need to be tonight.” 

Bin’s smile faltered only a fraction but the way it fell ever so slightly gave Myungjun hope.

_He will want to meet again, I’m sure._

There was no time to beat around the bush. “Bin, I would love to see you again. Could I have your number?” Being blunt wasn’t his style but desperate times called for desperate measures. He felt a jolt of pleasure as he said Bin’s name aloud for the first time.

“I would love to see you again too.” Bin pulled his phone out of his pocket. After a moment Myungjun realised the other’s expectant gaze and scrambled to find his phone. He patted his pocket desperately, embarrassment heating up his cheeks.

Bin’s easy laugh interrupted his panicky search and a business card appeared under his nose. “Give me a call. The main contact number is my mobile phone number.” He looked up. Bin’s eyes were warm.

Myungjun took the card. It felt nice in his fingers, the elegant dark script embossed on a thick snow-white card. He eyed the name. 

“MoonRock Dance Studios?”

“I know. A bit pathetic, isn’t it? We couldn’t come up with a name. In the end we went with our names, Moon for me, Rock for Minhyuk. His nickname is Rocky.”

Myungjun kept staring at the card. “No, I mean, I know the place.”

“There you go, small world. Now you know where to find me if you wanted a salsa lesson.” Bin’s smile was blinding.

“I wouldn’t be able to afford one, most likely. You are in Marine City. Are you a secret millionaire?” He winked at Bin but, to his surprise, the other’s cheeks flushed deep crimson.

“The building belongs to my parents. Now that we are considered a viable investment we get a discount on the rent.” Bin ducked his head and shrugged his shoulders.

“You shouldn’t have given me your card, you know,” Myungjun looked up, smirking a little. “What if, from now on, I pretend to be interested just because of your money?”

“We’ve been in Marine City for 18 months now. Trust me, I have learned how to read the signs.” Bin’s look hardened and his face seemed older all of a sudden.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” Myungjun eyed him anxiously.

“It’s fine,” Bin shook his head a little, “but… can I ask you something before you go?”

“Yeah, sure, go ahead.” Myungjun gave him his best reassuring smile but couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous.

_What is this about?_

“You said you needed to be somewhere tonight.” Bin’s eyes were not smiling. “I know this is absolutely none of my business but… Is there someone else in your life? I mean… I wouldn’t want to be meeting with you if there is some poor guy or girl waiting for you at home. That wouldn’t be a good start.”

“Not a good start?” Myungjun laughed a bit nervously. “We’ve just met, we hardly know each other. Maybe I just want to be friends?”

Bin leaned closer and flashed him a tiny, almost sad, smile, “You are not looking for a friend though, am I right?”

Myungjun almost squirmed under his unmoving gaze.

_God, he sees right through me._

“No, I’m not.”

Bin looked out of the window, “I hurt someone once… The guy I was with was cheating on his girlfriend, well, his fiancée… with me. With hindsight, I should have guessed - there were clues - but I was young and naive and had no idea. She found out eventually. One day she showed up in the dance studio and broke down in front of me, begging me to get the hell out of their lives.”

“But that was not your fault!” Myungjun cried. 

Bin turned back to Myungjun, “I know. He was a real asshole. They were engaged and planning their wedding already when we met. I broke up with him the minute she left the studio. Break up by a text message,” he smiled bitterly. “But it didn’t change the fact that because of my naivety I hurt some poor girl who did me no harm. And I swore to myself that this would never happen again. 

“So,” Bin’s eyes were not leaving his, “is there someone else?”

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

“So,” Bin’s eyes were locked with his, “is there someone else?”

……………

As long as he could remember, Myungjun had steered clear of clean-cut, sweet, earnest and responsible boys. They were no fun to flirt with, they were no fun to play. They were no fun in bed. What they usually looked for was a serious relationship.

_Thank you but no, thank you._

Turns out that right now, sitting in front of him, was a prime example of the aforementioned breed.

Frankly, Myungjun didn’t know why he wasn’t running for the hills in this precise moment, opting to gaze into Bin’s eyes instead, feeling an intense need to wrap him in a blanket and protect him from all evil in the world.

_Including myself._

Reading the silence as Myungjun’s hesitation to answer, Bin wrung his fingers a little nervously, “I know, sorry, shouldn’t have asked that. Way to kill the vibe, right?”

“You could say that,” Myungjun grinned, “I hope for your own good you don’t go around asking random guys who invite you for a cup of coffee if there’s a significant other in their lives.”

“I don’t, no.” Bin groaned in embarrassment, “I am so sorry, I’ve never done it before.”

“Wow, so I am the first one you felt you needed to do a background check on,” Myungjun cocked his head and raised his eyebrows. “Can I ask what brought that on? Do I exude some sort of a shady vibe?” His tone was light but the nerves were almost giving him away.

_He really does see right through me, doesn’t he?_

Bin eyes travelled over the room and settled on the young waiter chatting to an elderly couple at the table near the back. The woman must have said something nice because the boy’s smile grew even wider than his standard bright default beam and he went back to the counter with a noticeable spring in his step.

After what seemed an eternity to Myungjun, Bin looked back and flashed him an apologetic smile. “Can we forget this happened, please? It’s none of my business, really. And I’m keeping you, you need to go, right?”

Myungjun watched and his heart squeezed painfully. For all his charm and beautiful smile, was there hurt he just saw flashing in Bin’s eyes? He wasn’t sure; the fleeting moment passed and Bin sat in front of him, extending his arms in a perfectly smooth gesture of apology, his cute smile making it hard for Myungjun to do anything but smile in affirmation and mutter that it was all ok and yes, he really needed to go.

……………

They both stood in front of the café, a mild breeze ruffling their hair. The dusk was gradually painting the street around them in grey and blue hues, despite the bright neon signs of the shops and restaurants surrounding them.

Myungjun waved down a cab. It was an indulgence, usually he used public transport but late as it was, he didn’t have any time to spare and the hour with Bin was worth it. Although he wasn’t exactly sure why – his companion was the epitome of everything Myungjun avoided when looking for someone to hook up with.

_Still, it was so worth it._

Myungjun felt a burning impulse to stop the time. He didn’t want them to part ways just yet.

Keeping the tone casual was the key here. “Where are you heading?”

Bin eyed him as he was already opening the car door. “Going home. I live above the studio,” he added as a way of explanation.

He felt a surge of excitement shooting through him but managed to keep his cool. “Get in then. I am going to Marine City as well. Two blocks from your place. I will drop you off.”

He could see Bin waver and winked. “I’m not going to kidnap you, I swear.”

“Ok,” after a moment’s hesitation Bin finally relented and climbed into the taxi after him.

Once in, after Myungjun gave the driver the address – could we please stop by the MoonRock Dance Studios on the way – he glanced at Bin and saw the younger boy eyeing him a little uneasily. Clearly he was mulling over whether he did the right thing, questioning perhaps where Myungjun was heading, but restrained himself from asking any questions.

Taking pity on him, Myungjun explained. “I’m visiting my sister tonight. It’s my nephew’s 8th birthday.” The sigh of relief Bin let out was quiet but it was definitely there. Myungjun’s heart lurched with pleasure.

“That is so sweet.” Bin’s eyes creased in a warm smile. “Did you buy him a present in Seoul?”

“Well, no. I do have a present for him but… I made it.”

“Oh, that’s impressive. What did you make for him?”

Myungjun shyly opened the big folder he was holding on his lap. “He likes Goku from Dragonball Z. I drew some posters for him.”

“Oh, this is so cool!” Bin looked at the drawing with awe, eyeing the cartoon figure in read, almost leaping at them from the picture. He took a moment, immersing himself in the dramatic strokes and bold colours. “You are really good, you know that?”

Myngjun felt his ears burn.

Bin scooted closer to him. “Can I have a look at them?”

“Yeah, sure,” Myungjun spread the folder over their knees, feeling his body burning hot as his thigh pressed into the jeans-clad leg next to him.

Bin gave him a quick sideways glance but didn’t say anything, merely lifted the first poster carefully, revealing the one underneath. Myungjun took it off his hands, their fingers brushing for a brief moment.

Bin didn’t react, choosing to inspect the remaining drawings instead.

_He probably thinks it was accidental._

With Bin holding the last poster, Myungjun took his chance and slowly, deliberately stroked the boy’s fingers.

Bin gasped lightly and lifted his gaze to meet his.

Eyes locked together, Myungjun moved closer, so close he could taste the other’s breath on his skin, could watch Bin’s beautiful lips opening slightly, tempting, inviting.

He felt the pull, he knew where they were heading, where this would lead them if he didn’t get a grip on himself but the desire was making his head spin. His heart was pounding so loudly, he swore Bin could hear it.

Everything felt suspended mid-air, frozen. Everything around stood still, nothing mattered anymore, nothing but Bin, his eyes huge and mirroring Myungjun’s hunger.

He wanted to taste his lips, he wanted it so much it hurt. But it would be so stupid to do it right now. Despite the confines of the vehicle, despite being so deliciously close, they were still technically in public, a stranger sitting right in front of them, and besides, they barely knew each other, it would scare Bin off, it was a bad strategy, he really wanted it though, he really wanted it, he wanted it, he really, really, really…

“Is this alright, sir?”

The question made them both jump guiltily.

The cab was slowing down, pulling over in front of a high-rise building, its exterior sleek with glass and steel. On the ground floor a bright neon sign “MoonRock Dance Studios” illuminated the pavement.

Myungjun caught a sight of the driver glancing at them in the rear-view mirror. Was it a smirk he saw on the man’s face?

He pulled himself together. “That’s perfect, thank you.” How did he manage to make his voice sound normal, he had no idea.

Next to him Bin was scrambling for his backpack at his feet, ears glowing red, seemingly eager to get out of the car as quickly as possible. “Bye, thanks for the ride, “ he whispered hastily, not looking in Myungjun’s direction.

“Wait,” he reached out and grabbed Bin’s hand as the other was already out, ready to shut the door.

Bin paused, an unspoken question in his eyes, his expression guarded.

“There is no one else in my life.”

There was silence for a moment, then Bin’s face lit up from within and his fingers tenderly squeezed Myungjun’s. He opened his mouth to say something but hesitated, eyes trained on the ground.

“I’ll call you, ok?” Myungjun wasn’t letting go of Bin’s hand, prolonging the moment, wishing he didn’t have to go.

“Ok,” Bin looked up and smiled shyly, before gently prying his hand out of his grasp. ‘Bye.” 

He turned and left, glancing over his shoulder briefly to give Myungjun a quick wave.

Myungjun looked as Bin’s fall figure disappeared behind a glass door, crossed the marble lobby and was swallowed by the innards of the big, shiny glass giant in front of him.

With an oppressive feeling of emptiness, he leaned back into the soft upholstery of the car and closed his eyes, trying to relive the feel of Bin’s fingers on his skin.

……………

Myungjun rung the doorbell and Myungsoon opened the door. The spacious hallway extending behind her was decorated with colourful balloons, and the floor was strewn with confetti and random heaps of toys in a manner that left no one in doubt that this was an aftermath of a child’s birthday party.

His sister laughed at the sight of him. She often laughed, seemingly for no reason. Myungjun grinned back, allowing himself to be enveloped in the warmth of her love. “Hey, sis.”

“Hey little brother, glad you made it. He’s been waiting for you.” She motioned him inside.

“Uncle!”

“Sanha!”

The little figure ran towards him, arms outstretched. ”You are so late! We sang happy birthday already and grandma and all my friends have left. Bad, bad uncle!” Despite the rebuke, Sanha was laughing and wrapping his arms around Myungjun’s waist, the little fists grabbing a handful of his shirt.

“I’m sorry, pumpkin, but I’m here now and guess what? I’ve got a present for you!”

Sanha’s wispy hair tickled his nose as he scooped him up, cherishing the little one’s delighted squeals.

Myungsoon smiled at him over her son’s head.

“Myungjun, nice to see you,” Sungyong, his tall and handsome brother-in-law, emerged from the living room and pulled Myungsoon close to him, smiling, “I hope you had a good journey.”

Myungjun liked Sungyong. Despite being stinking rich, handsome and a stickler for impeccable manners, he had a heart of gold, was a great dad and, after 12 years of being together with Myungsoon, he still seemed as hopelessly in love in her as on the first day Myungjun saw him, when his sister, a giggly 20-year old introduced him to her little brother, “This is Sungyong. He thought we could all go to the arcade together.” Myungjun was won over by that sentence alone, but later, after months passed, he saw that Sungyong made his big sister genuinely happy and that was all it mattered to him.

“It was alright,” Myungjun grinned at his brother-in-law, shaking his hand.

_Oh, it was more than alright. You have no idea._

“Uncle,” a tug at his ear reminded him that the birthday boy didn’t like to be forgotten and was getting rather impatient, waiting for his present.

“Oh, of course,” he gently set him down and eyed the boy with a little smirk. “So, would you like to see your present?”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

“Please,” Myungsoon chided her son gently.

“Yes, please!” Sanha was jumping up and down, his young face lit with excitement.

“What will I get first, though?” Myugjun laughed and pointed at his cheek.

“A kiss!” Sanha’s little arms wrapped around his neck and Myungjun groaned as a loud smack near his ear almost cost him his hearing.

Sanha released his from his grip. “Can I see it now? Please?”

Myungjun crouched down.“ Get ready to be amazed, pumpkin! Ta-da!” With a flourish, he handed over the map to Sanha. “I’m sorry it’s not wrapped but at least you will get to see it quicker. Open it.”

Hesitantly, Sanha opened the map and peered in. After a moment of silence, he squealed. “Wow! This is so cool!” Barely containing his delight, he spread the posters around him on the floor and gazed at them, giggling and clapping his hands.

“Thank you so much, you’re the best! Can you help me to hang them up, Uncle? Please? Now?”

Myungun capitulated, letting himself being dragged by his hand in the direction of Sanha’s bedroom. 

Sungyong slapped him on the shoulder and chuckled benignly, “I’ll get your drink ready in the meantime. You will need it after that.”

……………

A tall lamp in the corner of the living room was casting a soft pool of light on the drinks on the coffee table. Myungjun took another sip from his cocktail, stretched his legs and allowed himself to yawn happily. He had spent an hour helping Sanha decorating the walls of his bedroom with the posters and tucking him to bed. Afterwards he volunteered to clear the hallway while Myungsoon tidied the kitchen and Sungyong rid the living room of the remaining party paraphernalia. The Soons had a housemaid but she wasn’t a living-in help as they both preferred their privacy in the evenings.

Now the three of them were enjoying a quiet time in the living room that resumed its status as a grown-up place once again. The calm of his sister’s home was spreading through Myungjun’s bones, through his brain.

Myungsoon and her husband were laughing together, recalling funny episodes from the birthday party. He occasionally chipped in with a question or a remark but his mind was elsewhere, a content smile plastered on his face as he tried to conjure the image of Bin’s parted lips just inches from his face.

“You look very happy today,” Myungsoon remarked with a calm smile, “grinning like a cat the whole time. What happened?”

Myungjun felt his face heat up. The memory of Bin’s hand brushing against his fingers in the cab, their legs touching in the cramped space, the look on his face when Myungjun held his gaze – how could he put that into words without sounding hopelessly sappy, how could he possibly explain the butterflies that had fluttered in his stomach while feeling Bin’s breath on his lips?

“I’m sure it was because you finally saw Jinwoo after such a long time.” Sungyong smiled at him pleasantly.

_Oh, Jinwoo, of course. Thank you, S, you sweet soul, coming to my rescue without even realising it._

“Oh yes,” he exhaled thankfully, “it was so great to see him again.”

“How is he?” Myungjun had a soft spot for Jinwoo, the best friend who had always been around in the awful months after their parents’ divorce, making Myungjun smile on the days when no one else could.

“He is doing great. I saw the band performing on Friday; they seem to have gained quite a lot of fans since I saw them last time a year ago. Jinwoo seems really happy. And,” he paused to amplify the dramatic effect, “I think he is in love.”

“Good for him!” Myungsoon’s eyes beamed warmly. “Now tell me all about it.”

……………

It was midnight by the time he got home, head a little heavy from the cocktails and fatigue.

As he sank into the pillows, he allowed himself to replay the moment in the cab again and again, feeling the familiar thrill flooding his body. He knew he would taste those lips soon enough. It might take couple of dates but he would get there. There was no rush. He knew Bin wasn’t like his usual weekend hook ups but, boy, it will be worth it. So sweet, so delicious. So hot.

Suddenly, without a warning, he saw Bin’s face again, pain crossing his beautiful features. _I hurt someone once._

He felt a wave of tenderness he hardly ever experienced whilst with anyone during his Friday and Saturday nights. 

He groaned and buried his face in the pillow. 

_I must be losing my mind._

As he was finally drifting off to sleep, the tiny voice of his conscience that he has been supressing the whole evening came to the surface.

_There is no one else in my life._

_Liar._

_Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar._

With the last remnants of his conscious mind Myungjun fought off the nagging thought.

There was no point in dwelling on it. There was nothing he could do.

Because what do you do when deep down you know that the biggest lie you have ever said is the one and only truth in your life?

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

“Hi, you reached MoonRock Dance Studios. We are all busy dancing at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone and we will get back to you as soon as possible.”

Panicked, Myungjun pressed the red button and threw the phone on the bed as if it burned his fingers. It landed on his cushion, display illuminating the dark bedroom, mocking him silently.

To leave a message? He couldn’t deal with this. Nobody did this anymore, nobody really used phones for – the horror - phoning anybody.

He did not quite know why, on a whim, he decided to call Bin, rather than send him a message. Well, if he was to be brutally honest, he wanted to talk to him. To hear the smile in his voice even if he couldn’t see it, to listen to his high-pitched laugh, maybe to hear Bin say his name for the first time.

Myungjun lived on social media; he sent messages, he posted things – he didn’t call people. At work it was different, of course; when on the phone, he was an efficient young man there, with a voice that was dripping with honey if needed to be - hence he wasn’t prepared at all for this sudden and total inability to form a coherent sentence when it came to all things romantic. God, how awful!

_Ok, time to pull myself together._

Myungjun headed for the kitchen, intent on killing time. When would be the best time to try and reach Bin? He glanced at his phone – nearly nine o’clock. Would people want to be learning dance steps at nine o’clock on a Thursday night?

It appeared they did. He tried again at half past nine to no avail, his cup of instant ramen – that was all he was able to attempt in the current frame of mind – on the worktop turning into a soggy mush.

After getting the answering machine again, Myungjun hung up and cursed. The ramen cup landed in the bin and he landed angrily on the sofa, turning on the TV, hell bent on watching something mindless that would distract him from the embarrassment. Who on earth hangs up after the beep, what kind of a total loser does that?

He found an old horror movie that he had watched years ago and immersed himself in the fear and gore. Better than dwelling on the thought how Bin – or his colleagues – would find missed calls from Myungjun’s number with his breathing as a message.

In the middle of a particularly haunting scene, chewing on a cushion, the loud ringing of his phone scared him so badly he nearly fell off the sofa.

He grabbed the phone with shaking hands, only to drop it promptly on the floor where it rolled under the coffee table. By the time he found it, he half expected it to have stopped ringing.

Finally, nose full of dust – God, when was the last time I hoovered? - he climbed from under the table. He flipped the phone in his hand to see the caller ID. The name on the display – Moon Bin - Dance Studio – nearly caused him to drop it again.

_It was now or never. Breathe._

“Hello.” He tried to sound dignified, pretending he didn’t have fluff in his hair, and a really bad urge to sneeze.

“Hi. Is this Kim Myungjun?”

“Speaking.”

“Hi, it’s Moon Bin. You called. Sorry I couldn’t pick up, I’ve only just finished my class.” Bin’s voice was light; no strained politeness that usually followed after the other party embarrassed themselves irrevocably. _I still have a chance then._

“That’s ok,” Myungjun supressed an urge to jump up and down and sank into the sofa cushions instead, grinning like an idiot. “How are you?”

……………

Myungjun threw himself face down on the bed and squealed into the pillow. He had a date!

He turned on his back and hugged the phone to his chest. Quite why he was so excited was a mystery to him, to be honest. A bowl of ramen, that was all it would be happening tomorrow. And a quick one at that, as Bin explained – sorry, the next couple of weeks are absolutely mad, lots of things going on but I have a cancellation tomorrow at six, could we meet then? 

Call that getting lucky.

And still – the inexplicable feeling of lightness in his chest wouldn’t leave him for the rest of the evening. He never had a date at high school but he was sure this was what it must have felt like. The first date when your biggest hope was to hold your crush’s hand for a moment.

Life was wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

……………

At six o’clock sharp, Myungjun pushed the glass door he remembered from the week before and hoped he wasn’t looking ridiculously overdressed in his suit and a tie. A meeting that ran late caused him to abandon any plans to go home and get changed before seeing Bin.

A rather intimidating receptionist looked up from her computer as he approached her. 

“Good evening, how can I help you?” Her make up was immaculate, her voice carefully modulated and her smile so professional it looked completely genuine. Myungjun swallowed hard, suddenly very grateful for his business attire, and tried not to stutter.

“Hi… MoonRock Dance Studios?” 

“Down the corridor on the left,” she pointed with her sleek, manicured hand, “and through the glass door at the end. There’s a sign, you can’t miss it.”

With a regal incline of her head she accepted Myungjun’s thanks and turned back to her screen.

He took a deep breath. _Ok. Here we go._

The receptionist was right, the studio was easy to find. Behind the big door with a bold blue sign, there was a small waiting area, far less intimidating that the rest of the building, with a big noticeboard and several posters on the walls, and colourful sofas, currently occupied by several well-groomed mums waiting for their offspring to finish.

Myungjun pretended to read the notices on the board for a moment but after a minute he couldn’t help himself anymore. His eyes were drawn to the big glass wall that separated the waiting room from the studio.

Inside a group of maybe ten eleven- to twelve- year olds were following a dance routine Bin was showing them.

_Oh. My. God._

Bin, dressed in a sleeveless tank top and tracksuit bottoms, was breathtaking. The sweaty bangs clinging to his forehead, his arms – _his arms!_ The black top revealed glimpses of his toned torso, and his legs - Myungjun felt he needed to sit down after a particularly long, lingering glance at Bin’s thighs.

_This is what Michelangelo would have created had he lived in Busan, not in Florence._

“Which one is yours?” A tall, rather glamorous woman in her mid-thirties interrupted his thirsting. She smiled at him, revealing a set of perfect pearly-white teeth, and pointed at the children, now piling out of the practice room, greeting their parents.

“Oh no, I’m not picking up.” Myungjun smiled his sweetest apologetic smile, hoping he wouldn’t be branded a pervert for sneaking in here to stalk minors.

“Ah, you must be here for the one-to-one salsa class Moon Bin-ssi usually has after this slot. He is really, really good. And his partner Lisa too. A friend of mine and her fiancé had couple of lessons with them before their wedding; they were very impressed. Is this your first time here?”

Myungjun decided to go with the flow and just nodded. It seemed the woman was able to talk for both of them. Luckily, a lanky girl soon ran towards her with a beaming smile on her face and they said their goodbyes hurriedly, disappearing, no doubt, to another activity.

Myungjun lingered politely in the background until all adults collected their respective charges and left. With some mums it took longer that the others; whether the endless questions aimed at Bin had more to do with his impressive, muscled forearms or his striking face covered in sweat, rather than their kid’s dancing skills, he had no idea.

Finally – _finally_ – the waiting area emptied and they were left standing alone, smiling at each other across the room.

“Hey. You came.” Bin wiped the sweat off his forehead and ran both hands through his hair. It stuck now in all directions and Myungjun’s throat suddenly felt absolutely parched.

“Hey.” _He is so beautiful._

“You look very… professional,” Bin’s smile was cute but Myungjun could feel his eyes sliding over his body and felt his cheeks heating up.

“And you look very… sweaty,” he retorted with a smirk, mimicking the other’s tone, hoping the sass would mask his thirsty look.

Myungjun liked how the way Bin threw his head back in laughter. It was quickly becoming his favourite sight in the world. “Yeah, about that. Let me get changed quickly before we go.”

“Sure,” he followed him into the room and leaned against the wall, watching Bin walking over to a row of hooks in the corner of the room where a big duffel bag hung on one of them. Myungjun expected him to take it and disappear but Bin simply pulled the sweaty top over his head, awarding him with a glimpse of well-defined muscles and smooth skin that made his knees go weak.

_David, definitely David. I’m dying._

Bin took a hoodie out of his bag, pulled it over and the beautiful view disappeared. Myungjun couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.

Standing in front of a big mirror covering one entire wall of the studio, Bin was trying in vain to smooth his hair. After few attempts he gave up, shrugged and turned to Myungjun, smiling. “ Shall we go? It’s my treat today. I know a nice little place not too far from here. Their ramen is great.”

The world outside was bathed in pink and orange light; the sun was beginning to set behind the skyscrapers marking the skyline. They were weaving their way through the crowds, chatting about Bin’s work. The city around them was teeming with life, people dressed in business suits leaving work, shoppers hurrying with glossy bags sporting famous brands, cabs whizzing past. A child ran out of a restaurant in front of them, almost tripping over Bin’s legs. He steadied the little boy and smiled sweetly at his dad who mouthed a silent thank you. By the time they rounded the corner and entered a cosy little eatery, almost hidden amongst the row of glamorous shops, Myungjun was doubling over with giggles after hearing anecdotes about some of Bin’s pupils.

……………….

After two steaming bowls of ramen arrived in front of them, the fragrance making Myungjun’s mouth water, Bin sighed contentedly and winked. “I’m so hungry I’m almost fainting. Please don’t be horrified if I talk with my mouth full and behave in a completely disgusting manner.” The speed with which he attacked the bowl suggested he wasn’t joking.

Myungjun laughed. “When did you last eat?”

“This morning.”

“Are you mad?” Myungjun eyed him with concern but Bin just laughed it off.

“I just didn’t have time today,” he shrugged, his cheeks full, faintly resembling a chipmunk. “Have been taking over Minhyuk’s classes for the last couple of weeks, I told you about that, and in my lunch break I had to go over some bills and make couple of phone calls. Our next performance is on Monday and there were some details to be ironed out.”

“Your performance? The one with green contacts?” Myugjun supressed a chuckle.

“Oh, you remembered that?” Bin’s eyes were laughing. ‘We have an interactive one-act-ballet for kids called ’Jisung’s cat’. It’s about friendship; a story about a boy who gets bullied at school, then finds a stray cat and because of that he finds new friends. We perform in schools, usually once a month or so. That Sunday when we met,” he held his gaze and Myungjun’s heart did a flip, “I was on my way home from our first performance in Seoul.”

“Where were your friends that Sunday? You were not traveling together.”

“They went back on Saturday night. I stayed behind to visit Sua the next day.”

Myungjun eyed him with curiosity. “That’s quite cool, you went to perform in Seoul. Why there in particular?”

“It was the primary school I went to while I lived there. I simply contacted my old music teacher, she is still teaching, sent her a video of the performance and asked her if the school would be interested. I just wanted to show her what became of me. I used to be a bit of a rebel back then but she always believed in me, said there was potential in me. I wanted to show her that I didn’t fail,” he ended with a shy smile.

“You grew up in Seoul then,” Myungjun regarded him with a curious smile.

“I was born here but my parents were separated for six years when I was younger and during that time Mum moved back to Seoul where her family was from with me and my sister. Amazingly, they patched things up with Dad and we all came back when I was fourteen.”

“That’s pretty amazing indeed – that they worked it out.” A sudden sting of jealousy he felt when comparing the fate of his and Bin’s parents made him look away for a second until he felt composed enough to face Bin again.

“I’m afraid I didn’t make it very easy for either of my parents when we moved back.” Bin didn’t notice his lapse of attention and was, too, emerged in old reminiscences. “I felt lonely and missed my friends; I sulked, blamed my Mum for all the changes and I wasn’t very nice to Dad. Couldn’t understand why a stranger was commanding me around all of a sudden. Not that we never met during those six years, I just wasn’t used to him as a presence in my life anymore. I was lucky to have met Minhyuk. We met through dancing and he saved me from completely going off the rails. The first year or two back in Busan were sort of hell.”

“That must have been hard,” whispered Myungjun, his own memories of loneliness and despair resurfacing again and making his eyes moist.

“I’m sorry, are you ok?” Bin leaned forward and put his hand over his and Myungjun felt the warmth from his palm spread through his whole body. Through his whole pathetic, lonely, bruised heart.

To his utter horror, the tears that he has been just about holding in check until then suddenly spilled down his cheeks and started dripping into the empty bowl in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” he sniffed, trying really hard to get a grip and not to make an absolute fool of himself on their first date. “You just reminded me of… My mum left us when I was eleven. It was a nasty divorce and we never saw her again. My sister is seven years older than me; she more or less raised me when Dad wasn’t really coping with all the mess. I’m very lucky I have her. Her and my best friend Jinwoo. Had they not been around, I don’t know…” he trailed off, gulping down the lump that was forming in his throat. 

Bin’s eyes didn’t leave his face and his hand didn’t move. Instead, he squeezed his fingers gently. “Your sister did an great job raising you – look at the impressive result,” he cocked his head with a tiny smirk.

Myungjun laughed through his tears. Despite everything, Bin somehow made him feel better. “She is the best. She and Jinwoo are my family.”

“What about your Dad?”

Myungjun sighed heavily. “Dad couldn’t deal with anything after mum left him for another man. She had married Dad very, very young; I think her parents had more or less pushed her into it and I don’t think she ever loved Dad at all. She started drinking and it all went downhill from there. Dad tried to help her but it was no use. Then she met somebody and just started disappearing on a regular basis. When she finally left for good, it was a relief for us all, in a way. But it almost left Dad with no purpose, if you know what I mean? As long as I remember, he was trying to save mum… to save her from herself – and suddenly there was nothing to do. I think he got really depressed first, then started dating – God, all those young girls, it was embarrassing! He remarried six years ago; my stepmother,” he huffed with a hint of irony in his voice, “is one year younger than my sister. We aren’t that close. We still see him but it feels weird. I think he is trying really hard to rebuild his life after so many years of chaos but somehow I feel me and Myungsoon don’t belong there.” He shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. “She and Jinwoo is all I have at the end of the day.”

He smiled at the memory of Jinwoo and him sitting together on the pavement, soju bottles in their hands, Jinwoo’s face emitting the glow of those first sparks of love, rendering him impossibly beautiful, although his features were always more striking than classically handsome. “It was him I was visiting in Seoul that day. It felt so good to see him again.”

He wiped the last tears away and looked at Bin who was still holding his hand, thumb slowly stroking his knuckles.

“You ok? Bin eyed him worriedly. “Sorry I made you cry. All this talk about families, that never ends well, right?” His tone was light but Myungjun could sense the concern and tenderness underneath and felt thankful.

“I’m alright,” he shook his head. “Sorry I was so emotional.”

“I promise next time there will be no tears. I will only make you smile,” Bin leaned closer, taking his other hand. There was a question in his eyes, unspoken, but it was definitely there and Myungjun held his breath for a moment.

“Next time?” His voice was barely more than a whisper.

“Yeah,” Bin’s smile enveloped him like a warm blanket, “if you want.”

“I want to,” his heart skipped a beat when Bin’s fingers squeezed his hands a little harder and his smile grew wider.

The waitress appeared to collect the bowls and Myungjun’s hands instinctively slid away from Bin’s. There were places - even in Busan, if you looked hard enough - where a male-to-male public display of affection was ok but this neighbourhood was definitely not one of them. Bin didn’t seem to mind though; as composed as if they had been discussing the stock market for the last hour, he asked for the bill.

……………

The light outside was being transformed by the falling dusk; the air was getting colder, the busy street seemed to be developing a life of its own, shrouded in semi-darkness, punctuated by harsh neon lights and blaring horns of cars passing by.

They stood in front of the restaurant, suddenly unsure of themselves. Bin was swinging his arms, their fingers brushing with his every move; a covert touch, sending tiny shots of thrill down Myungjun’s spine.

All of a sudden, Bin seemed to have deflated a little, like a balloon left lying around for too long after a birthday party. “I need to go back." 

He heard Bin’s words but wished desperately he could stop the time somehow. “I know. I’ll call you, ok?”

“No, I’ll call you,” Bin’s eyes lit up, teasing.

“No.” Myungjun cocked his head to the side, a cheeky grin spreading on his face. “I’ll call YOU.”

“Ok, ok,” Bin raised his hands in mock surrender and his giggle was melting Myungjun’s heart. “Fine, you call me.”

“Fine.”

“I have to go now."

“I know. Go.”

“Ok.”

“Ok.”

They both burst out laughing at the same time. Myungjun gave Bin a little push. “You really need to go.”

“I know. I’m going.” Bin started walking backwards, eyes still holding his. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

And then he turned and was gone, disappearing into the sea of bodies surrounding them.

……………

Myungjun wandered around aimlessly, knees weak, until he found a bench he could sink onto with a groan of gratitude.

He could not name the feeling of warmth that was spreading through his chest and making him shake at the same time. He wrapped his arms around him to stop himself from shuddering.

He has just spent an hour eating in a company of a gorgeous man and not once did he picture him naked while talking to him. Instead, he was trembling like a fifteen-year-old, just because the said man held his hand for a few moments.

Where was the old Myungjun, the hedonist, the pleasure-chaser?

Was he in love?

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

“Your friend seems to be a remarkable young man,” Mrs Bae was looking thoughtfully at Bin who crouched down and was now smiling into the little girl’s face, her chubby dimpled hands tapping his cheeks, her face grinning happily.

The formidable old lady stood next to Myungjun in the corner of a spacious, sunny atrium and Myungjun’s heart was swelling with pride when looking around. 

This was his baby, his favourite school amongst all schools he ever designed and he finally came to see it. He couldn’t quite fathom why he didn’t do it a long time ago. Despite feeling embarrassed about how much time he had let slide by, it all went surprisingly easy. Mrs Bae remembered who he was straightaway and seemed genuinely pleased when he asked whether he could come and have a look. Myugjun asked for a half a day off at work, muttering something about looking for inspiration for his new project. He knew Mr Kang, his line manager, would not object to that, as he was keen for Myungjun to do well with his first potential break-through. It was a school again, but this time the project made Myugjun giddy with excitement. A small boarding school to be set in vast expanses of beautiful grounds – all gently rolling green hills and beautifully manicured gardens – and the budget was generous. Being part of a chain of private academies, the aim wasn’t just being functional, it was also to be beautiful. Myugjun was in heaven.

To go to have a look at an old project, to see how well it was received and whether it fulfilled all the expectations – it sounded absolutely plausible (it was also true) but all his questions could have been answered by phone or discussed via e-mail and Myungjun had a further, ulterior motive beside the genuine desire to see the fruit of his labour in person.

His and Bin’s schedules had been completely incompatible in the last month or so. His own long hours hardly allowed him to do more than fall into bed at the end of every day, thrilled with the new challenge but tired to the bone. The weekends got busy too, spent doing research, finding inspiration and trying our various ideas for his new mission. He loved the buzz it gave him but days suddenly seemed too short.

Similarly, Bin had hardly any minute spare. All his time during the week was taken over by either school or dance classes, still covering for Minhyuk, as well as teaching his own; Saturdays and Sundays were spent trying to catch up on all his school assignments, as he was late with almost everything.

“I feel so stupid,” he moaned to Myugjun, while they were both getting ready for bed. Their late evening phone calls were turning into something of a routine. “Everyone seems so organised, they all get their assignments submitted on time – and I look like an idiot.”

“I’m pretty sure not everyone gets absolutely everything done on time – and I’m also pretty sure you are the only one who runs a successful business alongside school. Stop beating yourself up.”

“I’m so tired,” Bin’s usual sunny nature was taking a serious hit and Myungjun could hear the edge in his voice. Later, as he was listening to Bin’s even breathing over the phone and trying to decide whether he should feel offended that Bin fell asleep in the middle of their conversation or whether it was rather cute – after a short deliberation he opted for the latter – he went to bed with a firm resolve to find time for them to meet, and find it fast. 

……………

“Can you skip school on Thursday? I have a plan.”

“Oh,” he could hear the hesitation in Bin’s voice, “I’m not sure.”

“Come on,” Myungjun pressed on, “have you ever bunked off school? Ever?”

“Well,” even through the phone he could feel Bin shift a little uncomfortably, “I did - couple of times with Minhyuk, right after we moved here from Seoul.”

“God, that’s ages ago,” laughed Myungjun, his mood lifting up all of a sudden, “I think it’s time for skipping some more lectures. Seriously. ”

He ignored Bin’s half-hearted protests and gave him the address where to meet.

“Myungjun, really, I don’t know, I’m behind with so many things already…”

“Blah-blah-blah, I don’t want to hear it. I want to show you something,” he paused for a second. “It’s the school I told you about. I’m going to visit on Thursday. Please come with me.” He threw the bait and hoped for the best.

Bin’s breathing on the other end of the line went quiet. 

_Please say yes. It was your idea after all, please say yes._

“Ok.”

……………

“I’m glad you are here,” Mrs Bae didn’t turn, her eyes still on Bin who was now sitting in the sandpit with the children, patiently digging holes that they filled the instant he finished. When a little boy emptied a fistful of sand on his head, he didn’t bat an eyelid, just laughed. The young teacher, crouching amidst the little ones and helping them with their tiny spades, was visibly melting every time she looked at Bin. Myungjun didn’t blame her. He was melting too.

“I may have a proposition for you, Myungjun-ssi,” the deputy-head’s voice pulled him out of his daydream.

“One of our families is buying a plot of land outside Busan. The plan is to build a house for their son, one of our students. He is in his last year, and will be leaving us soon. His parents want a house where he could potentially live as an adult, with assistance. He walks with considerable difficulty, among other things. The Parks were very impressed with our new wing and, as it happened, asked about the architect who was responsible. They understand a family home is very different from an institution but they admired the way you managed to merge functionality and beauty.” She gave him a quick smile. “Do you have any experience with assisted living, in terms of your portfolio?”

Mrs Bae didn’t move, her delicate wrinkly hands still gripping the low rail, her eyes still on the children and Bin, but Myungjun could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest. This was an interview.

He tried to steady his breath and chose his words carefully, “Yes, I do. Although schools have been my main focus over the last couple of years, in my previous position I was involved in couple of projects that included care homes for the elderly. They had ramps, lifts, step-free access, everything I imagine your student might need. I could send over some of my plans for the Park family to see, if they wish to have a look at my work.”

“Good,” Mrs Bae looked at him benignly, the smile softening her regal expression. “I mention your name when I see them next time.”

“Thank you,” Myungjun bowed, his voice constricted with awe, “I am very honoured.”

“Shall we join the little ones?” She smiled at him, easing his discomfort, and motioned with her hand. “I think we left your friend alone for long enough.”

Bin saw them approaching, jumped up and tried to shake the sand out of his clothes and hair.

“Thank you for joining us today, Moon Bin-ssi,” Mrs Bae inclined her head graciously.

Bin bowed and smiled, and Myungjun’s heart melted again, for about the thousandth time today when watching him, “Thank you for allowing me to see your school, it’s a great place.”

“It’s only thanks to Myungjun-ssi, that we have the privilege to be learning in such a beautiful environment,” she gave Myungjun a maternal pat on the arm.

“He is amazing, isn’t he?” Bin turned from Mrs Bae to flash him an adoring smile, then beamed back at the old lady and Myungjun watched in astonishment as they exchanged a conspiratory grin.

“Do you work with children yourself?” She walked slowly towards the children and threaded her arm through the crook of Bin’s elbow, head inclined toward him, listening.

“I teach dance, both adults and children,”

“Hmm. Dance is a wonderful thing. It transcends all ages and abilities, don’t you think, Moon Bin-ssi? What kind of dance do you teach, if I may ask?”

……………

“Shit.” Outside the school in a sun-lit street, Bin exhaled a little shakily. “Mrs Bae is one scary lady. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she was very nice and I really liked her… But I had a feeling the whole time she could see right through me and that I’d better behave.”

“Yeah, that’s her, nothing escapes her.” Myungjun couldn’t but giggle a little at the look of Bin’s scared face. “She is a sweetheart though, once you get to know her. When I was working on the project, she was almost like a mum to me. And you made a good impression on her; she was literally eating out of your hand when you were talking about your ballet. You might have got yourself a performance at their school at some point.

“Who cares about me?” Bin’s eyes creased in a wide smile. “What was the thing she mentioned when we were leaving, about the Parks being in touch about their house?”

Now at a safe distance from the school gates, Myungjun couldn’t contain himself anymore. He explained giddily, the excitement getting the better of him. 

“Oh my God, do you know what this means? Do you have any idea?” he squealed. “Somebody really liked what I did. They liked it so much, they might trust me with their own home, just like that, after seeing my work!”

He started jumping up and down, and laughed. “I want to go out, properly, I want to celebrate. I want to go dancing.”

He stopped and looked at Bin who was standing still, his eyes not leaving Myungjun. There was something in Bin’s look that made him stop talking.

“I’m so happy for you,” Bin suddenly wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close for a moment, then letting go and smiling into his eyes. “You’re right, let’s do something.”

Myungjun could hardly breathe. He felt his ears burn but reached the point where he didn’t care anymore.

He pulled Bin back to him, so close he could see the tiniest flecks of gold in the chocolate brown of his irises. “Take me out dancing.”

Bin blinked, confused at first, then a crooked smile spread across his face, “Ok. Where do you want to go?”

The words were out of his mouth before he could think it through. “Surprise me.” 

“Oh,” all of a sudden Bin looked a bit lost.

“What?” Myungjun let go, the flirting cut short before it even started. For some reason Bin looked like a helpless puppy and he had to supress a wild urge to laugh. “You are a dancer, don’t tell me you don’t go out clubbing, that you don’t know all the cool places.”

“Well, I don’t really go clubbing, or not very often.” Bin shrugged his shoulders, sounding mortified. “Not enough time, too much effort. When we want to dance and have fun, we just bring food, booze and friends to the studio after we locked up for the day and that’s it. Best parties ever. Jungkook knows the weirdest people, you can guarantee a crazy night if he invites a bunch of people around. His boyfriend is mental, he’s the best.”

“Jungkook has a boyfriend?”

_So nobody would judge us there._

_Ok, stop it. You’re getting ahead of yourself._

Bin seemed to be oblivious to his emotional rollercoaster and was chatting away happily, “Yeah, Taehyung, wait till you meet him, he is an absolute crackhead. I like him. Bet you’ll like him too.”

“He sounds cool.” 

_He wants me to meet his friends._

After a while the chatter died away and they walked together in silence. Bin looked as if was about to say something, then hesitated, stalling. After couple of attempts, he exhaled sharply, squared his shoulders and looked up. “Ok, let’s go out; I’ll figure out something. Is Saturday gonna be ok? I can’t do Fridays at the moment. I have two back-to-back salsa classes on Friday night; by the time I finish and lock up it’s well past ten and I am too knackered to go anywhere. Saturday could work though.”

“Cool. Saturday is great.”

“I’ll text you the address.”

……………

Saturday seemed to be dragging forever. Myungjun went for a run in the morning (boring), considered, then dismissed, the idea to go out shopping (didn’t fancy going anywhere without Bin), then decided to tidy up the living room (even more boring, but the mindless, repetitive tasks were somehow soothing).

At four in the afternoon he collapsed onto the sofa, exhausted but less jittery, the room ready to receive a state visit from the president, and felt his eyes drooping.

Half an hour later he was jerked awake by a beep of his phone. Message from Jinwoo, ‘I am so happy!!!’

He smiled. Clearly life was good over in Seoul. He put the phone back on the coffee table and tried in vain to doze off for a little more. No chance. The phone beeped again. 

Myungjun sighed and gave up on sleep. The image Jinwoo has just sent him was a bit blurry, so he clicked on it to see it better. The caption read ‘I think I love him!’

He stared for a moment, the next second he jumped up as if his ass was on fire. He thought of texting but dismissed it – it would take too long – and dialled his best friend’s number.

“Hey,” Jinwoo picked up immediately, his voice a suppressed whisper, “why are you calling, you will wake him up and…”

“Jinwoo, listen to me!” he hissed at him, interrupting his tirade. “Delete it, you moron! Taking pictures of Dongmin asleep in your bed without his permission - what are you thinking, you idiot? Do you want this to be the shortest one-night-stand in the world? And it’s not even night, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon; when he wakes up and somehow realises, you won’t even make it to the ‘night’ bit! He will be out of your bed and out of your life before you say ‘bye.’ Just delete it, ok?”

“Congratulations, I’m so happy for you would have been nice,” the grumpiness in Jinwoo’s voice was the same that used to make him laugh since he was ten.

He grinned. “Yeah, yeah, I will do all of that, when you promise me you delete it, ok?”

“I will, I will,” judging by the noise, Jinwoo left the room and closed the door behind him, “but isn’t he beautiful?”

“Oh God,” groaned Myugjun, “stop. Just stop.”

“Isn’t he though?”

He was. Myugjun had to admit that despite his outrage he had a good look at the shot and Dongmin was breathtaking. The creamy, perfect skin, the wide shoulders, the delicate face. Asleep, he looked like an angel. Lucky Jinwoo.

“Congratulation, dude. I’m really happy for you. He is beautiful and you are a lucky bastard.”

“He is so much more than beautiful,” there was awe and adoration in Jinwoo’s voice, making his words melt like chocolate, “ he is smart, he is funny, he is…”

“Ok, I’m done, you’re embarrassing. Stop waxing. Instead, kidnap him one weekend and come over. We’ll go out. I might make it into a double date,” he added smugly.

“What, what? What did you just say?”

“I like someone. We’re going on a date tonight and I think he likes me too.”

“You’re fucking kidding me. Tell me.”

……………

Myngjun was pacing the pavement, checking his phone every five seconds. He was too early and the time seemed to have slowed down to a snail’s pace. 

Around him the city was teeming with life, the glamorous brigade filling the streets, space around him filled with laughter and sense of excitement. He could feel the Saturday night hunt hanging heavy in the air, flowery perfumes enveloping the young girls, rustling fabric of dresses worn by dazzling women, musky scent of men drawn close by the beauty like moths to the flame, but for once he was completely blind and utterly immune to the thrill of it.

He was nervous. Bin didn’t tell him where they would be going, just texted a vague piece of advice regarding the dress code – something sexy ☺ no flannel over an old t-shirt ok? 

_As if I was ever going to do that._

After a long deliberation in front of his wardrobe, he went for top-to-toe black, from polished dress shoes, skinny jeans and a shirt in a heavy, liquid silk, to a black choker. It had looked stunning at home, now he just felt ridiculous.

Bin also texted him not to get scared ‘but I dyed my hair, I have no idea why, just don’t freak out.’ That scared him even more and his pacing increased in intensity. 

“Myugjun?”

He spun around and forgot to breathe.

_Wow._

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

Myungjun thought Bin absolutely beautiful, no matter what the other wore. Bin was stunning in an oversized t-shirt and torn jeans, or slurping noodles wearing a faded hoodie, with messy hair and a bare face - nothing could detract from his beauty – but Myungjun was utterly unprepared for the sight in from of him when he turned.

As if they had agreed beforehand to make tonight’s outfits a complete juxtaposition, Bin was dressed in white, from his denim jacket to white jeans and white converse trainers, the only contrast the word REBEL in black script on the t-shirt peaking from underneath his jacket.

Now, top-to-toe denim was usually an absolute no in Myungjun’s universe but this was Bin and the whole ensemble worked somehow.

It was Bin’s hair and face though what made Myungjun stare completely mesmerised.

Bin had dyed his hair silvery blond, making his golden skin and brown eyes stand out in sharp contrast. Dark eyeliner framed his eyes, making them look huge, and a he wore a thin dangling earing in his left ear.

“Jeez,” Myungjun breathed, “I’m glad we haven’t met with you dressed like this. I wouldn’t dare to approach you at all. You look like an idol.”

“You don’t look too bad either,” a crooked smile flashed on Bin’s face and for a moment they just stood frozen in time, the air heavy with something primal as they drunk in the sight of each other. Bin’s gaze made Myungjun shiver. Up until now, he gradually got used to feeling slightly protective towards Bin, a little bit like his older brother perhaps, but in this moment he could feel the balance shifting and it was making his skin prickle.

“So, where are we going?” He needed to break the silence laden with something he didn’t really want to analyse just yet.

Bin pointed towards an entertainment complex across the road, “ClubExx. Have you been before?”

“ClubExx? I’ve heard about it. That’s invitation only though.” Myungjun raised his eyebrows.

“Not for the members and their guests. And I am a member,” Bin sounded almost embarrassed, “got the membership as a coming-of-age present from my uncle. My Mum and Dad weren’t impressed but uncle Taemin meant I needed to go out more. He is the black sheep of our family,” he smirked, “too much money, way too wild, showing off. My parents didn’t approve but he is a charmer, very hard to resist. I tried to persuade him to give me some money instead so we could put more mirrors in the studio but he said he was here to spoil me, not to finance my business endeavours.”

“You have an awesome uncle.”

Myungjun seriously doubted that an upmarket, elitist club would be the place to get up close and personal with Bin tonight but the curiosity got better of him. He has heard about the place, never been though. The membership cost a fortune and he didn’t move in the right circles to be tagged along as a guest.

_And why not? We can always go somewhere else if the place is awful._

They crossed the road and joined the Saturday crowd. Myungjun was happy to follow, having no idea where the club was in the vast complex gleaming in front of them like a dazzling monster, swallowing the steady stream of people in search for fun.

After entering the the vast cavernous main lobby with an impressive waterfall in the middle, they waved their way through to one of the lifts.

Once inside, Bin pressed the button to the top floor and flashed him a conspiratory smile. “All the way up,” he wriggled his eyebrows in a faux suggestive way and Myungjun giggled, feeling as light as a feather.

On the top floor, the small lobby was elegant, but rather unassuming. A little group of people were waiting to be let in, a security guard with impeccable manners, looking like a politician, checking their names against his clipboard.

“Jeez, am I on the list too?” Myungjun frowned.

“Yeah, I did it this morning.”

“God, that’s not very spontaneous. I mean the system, not you,” he added quickly with an apologetic shrug.

“Oh I know, it’s ridiculous. But I could have done it by text literally an hour before. They just want to maintain an air of exclusivity. It’s rather pathetic really,” Bin whispered in Myungjun’s ear, clearly enjoying the gossip and the opportunity to brush his lips against his hair for a second. Myungjun felt his ears burn.

After Bin gave both their names to the security guard who checked them against his list, and a cursory pat-down, they were let in.

The interior of the club was sleek, glamorous, but too much like a lobby of a hotel, Myungjun found. A well-stocked bar in the corner was crowded but the music wasn’t what he was expecting and there was no dance floor in sight.

He looked around, a little disappointed, “Is this it?”

“God no!” Bin gasped in mock horror, then leaned to him again and added in a conspiratory whisper, “This part is for grandpas and gold-diggers. Come on, we’re going on the roof.”

“On the roof? Cool.”

Inside the lift, Myungjun began to relax. It was just a club, after all. The people in the downstairs room had seemed the usual mix of well-to-do businessmen he was used to seeing during meetings at work, and rich media types, all surrounded by stylish women, some of them probably looking for a nice, rich, silver fox. Myungjun didn’t give them a second glance, he has long learned not to judge people by whom they hooked up with on a weekend night.

He felt Bin’s eyes on him and smiled at the eager face. The feeling of Bin’s lips in his hair still lingered and suddenly Myungjun’s chest felt tight and hot with excitement. It was time to have fun.

The moment the door of the lift opened, they stepped into another world. Dim light, pounding music, bar lit by fluorescent light and a dance floor so crowded Myungjun wondered how could anyone move, let alone dance. Everyone seemed to be swaying; young and attractive bodies pulsating in the semi-darkness giving the impression of the whole room being alive, breathing. Through the glass walls Myungjun could see more people on the terrace, sipping their drinks, laughing and mingling together in a melting pot of beauty, youth and glamour.

Myungjun stared for a moment, completely transfixed, until he felt a tug on his hand.

“Come on,” Bin pulled him in the direction of the crowded bar. “What do you want to drink?”

“I don’t know, soju?”

Bin giggled, amused by a joke only he could understand, and leaned over the bar to order, “Could I have soju and a raspberry mojito?”

Myungjun burst out laughing. “What are you, a 40-year old lady?”

Bin grinned, his eyes crinkling, “Stop laughing, it’s actually rather good. I learned to drink it here. I would rather die than order it somewhere else though.” He leaned over to Myungjun and whispered in his ear, “I bumped into the mother of one of my students here once. Downstairs. She kept buying me drinks, praising me for my teaching and dancing abilities and getting more and more flirty. It got a bit too much towards the end and I had to invent some crazy excuse and disappear. Liked the mojitos though,” he added with a giggle.

Myungjun gasped with fake horror, “Jeez Bin, and you look so innocent!”

“Don’t, it wasn’t my fault at all! I got out of there as soon as I could! It was embarrassing afterwards though, in the dance studio, I mean. Thank God, her kid was rather wooden and he didn’t last long.”

Their drinks arrived. Myungjun admired the mojito, the raspberries turning the drink into a liquid ruby, a precious jewel lightly swaying in the glass.

“Do you want to try?” Bin held the glass towards him and Myugjun pulled his hand closer and took a sip. The strange intimacy of the gesture made his insides twist.

“You like it?” Bin’s eyes were holding his above the glass.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” reluctantly, he let go of Bin’s hand and turned to his soju, “now I’m seriously questioning my choice of drink.”

“There is always the next round,” Bin nudged him into the ribs with a smirk, laughing at Myungjun who nearly spilled his glass.

“Bin, stop! I’m ticklish!”

“Ooh, that’s good to know,” Bin eyebrows shot up high, “I bet that will come in handy later tonight.”

Before he could contemplate in earnest why would Bin want to tickle him later, their mutual hilarity was interrupted by a rather high-pitched voice.

“Binnie-ssi!” A very thin, very groomed girl, who appeared at the bar out of nowhere, squealed at the sight of them nursing their drinks. Well, not at the sight of me, thought Myungjun. Just Bin.

“How are you, honey? Haven’t seen you in ages!” She extended her long arms, sending multiple bangles clattering, and enveloped Bin in a tight hug.

Myungjun tried to stem the wave of jealousy rising in him as he watched Bin smiling sweetly and answering her questions.

_She is calling him Binnie._

“This is Myungjun, my friend,” Bin’s voice brought him out of his gloomy thoughts, “Myungjun, this is Sooyun. We went to school together.”

“Hi, Myungjun,” the girl’s smile directed towards him was sweet enough but she had an agenda, he could tell straightaway. And sure enough, couple of minutes into their conversation, she turned to Myungjun with a cute pout while wrapping her slim arm around Bin’s waist and pulling him closer. “Do you mind if I borrow him for a moment? I really want to dance and he is the best. He used to be _the_ most amazing dancer in the whole school and then he disappeared to have his own business and be all important. Where have you been, Binnie? I missed you. Come on, let’s go!”

Bin cast him a desperate look, mouthing a silent sorry, as he was dragged onto the dance floor.

“Yeah, sure, go ahead, “Myungjun muttered sarcastically under his breath, “thanks for asking.”

He threw himself on the nearest bar stool and ordered another bottle of soju. Hunching over the counter, he quickly downed a glass. After two more, the pulsing anger in his head calmed down to a low itch and he turned around to face the dance floor.

At first he couldn’t see Bin anywhere in the mass of moving bodies, then he noticed him standing on the edge with Sooyun, chatting to a young man roughly their age. The stranger was a lot smaller that Bin but made up for the lack of stature with a self-assured posture. All three of them looked as if they had known each other for a long time and were laughing about something. After a brief exchange, the boy gave Sooyun a hug, slapped Bin on the shoulder and made his way out, towards the lobby.

Myungjun watched with a frown as Sooyun, clearly relieved at being left alone, lifted her expectant gaze towards Bin and started pulling him towards the middle of the dance floor.

“Great, that’s just great.” If the first half an hour was anything to go by, this was to be a great night, Myungjun thought bitterly.

Emerging from the crowd, a petite girl, all bouncy long curls and a cute face, waved at Bin and Sooyun and intercepted their path. With a certain level of _schadenfreunde,_ Myungjun watched Sooyun’s smile faltering a little as the other girl motioned them to join the group she was with, clearly mutual friends. Hugs and exclamations were exchanged and a second later - Sooyun’s smile a little stilted - they both joined the circle.

_Serves you right. Now you have to share him._

The moment he saw Bin move though, all thoughts about Sooyun were forgotten.

His breath hitched as he stared at the dance floor. If Bin was hot just by standing casually and simply existing, it was nothing compared to what he became when he danced.

Not that he was trying hard. Half of the time he just fooled around with the other boys, a goofy grin on his face, looking adorable. But if music switched to a bass-heavier R&B song, it was as if his whole body came alive.

Sooyun kept close to him, swaying cheekily and working hard to gain his attention, but he was hardly noticing her or anybody else in their little group of friends, lost in his own world, his body moving as one with the beat of the song, his face having undergone the transformation from endearing to sexy the moment he closed his eyes and let the music take control.

Sooyung’s and all other girls’ eyes were drawn to him like to a magnet, even some of the boys were transfixed and tried to copy the way his body swayed to the music but Bin stayed sweetly oblivious to effect he had on people around him (or on Myungjun for that matter). Any time he opened his eyes and their gaze met, his face was transformed by a sweet, innocent smile, completely at odds with the message his body was sending to everyone around.

“Hi, stranger,” a deep, velvety voice interrupted his salivating. “Care to dance?”

He turned around. A young woman in her mid-twenties smiled at him coyly, her eyes rimmed heavily with kohl, her dress emphasizing a lithe body with long limbs and curves in all the right places.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m in a mood for dancing right now, “ he shrugged his shoulders, trying very hard not to be rude.

“Ooh, sulky…” she winked at him, a hint of conspiracy in her voice. “Has your date ditched you?”

“I didn’t bring a date. I’m here with a friend.”

She followed his gaze towards the dance floor and nodded her head as if everything became rather obvious, “Ah, I see, the hottie in white. Kinda deserted you here, hmm?”

“No, he didn’t,” Myungjun answered a little huffily. “He met an old friend.”

“Yeah, sure,” there was pity in her look and Myungjun felt his ears burn. “You didn’t expect him to sit here with you without being noticed, did you?”

“I’m alright, I don’t mind,” another shrug of his shoulders was supposed to be nonchalant but he seriously doubted he fooled her.

The girl didn’t seem to hold it against him. “Suit yourself, gorgeous,” she threw him a cheeky smile and with a wink, she was gone.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Bin extricating himself from Sooyun – ha, you not going to win tonight – and coming back. 

“Sorry for leaving you like this. You ok?” Bin eyed him apologetically, all flushed cheeks and a sweaty forehead, running all ten fingers through his hair in a vain attempt to restore some semblance of a hairstyle and Myungjun’s heart ached.

_He is so beautiful it hurts._

“Come on, what are you talking about? I’m fine.” His smile was almost genuine. Maybe a little too tight around the edges but he almost fooled himself and certainly hoped to fool Bin.

“No, you are not,” Bin hung his head unhappily. “I’m sorry, this is my fault, I shouldn’t have picked this place. It was a stupid idea.”

“No, honestly, don’t worry. They were your friends, of course you had to go and stay for a bit. I’m fine,” Myungjun brushed his fingers against Bin’s for a split of a second and smiled into his sad eyes. “Stop worrying, ok? Let’s go outside.”

They stepped out into the cool night air, weaving through the mass of bodies on the decking. The heavy pounding of the music faded away slightly as they made their way to the edge of the terrace.

Myungjun leaned back against the railing and was content for a moment just watching the crowd. 

Bin nudged closer to him, one arm casually behind Myungjun’s back.

“I’m sorry,” his fingers started trailing the length of Myungjun’s spine, sending shiver all over his body, “I didn’t realise just how many people I know would be here tonight. I thought it would be cool to come here but it’s almost like a high school reunion. That was not part of the plan. I’ve only been here couple of times but I liked the view from the terrace and wanted to show you.” He turned around and Myungjun followed suit.

In front of them the city was alive with thousands lights punctuating the darkness, like a pulsing, fluorescent organism, perpetually alive.

“It’s great, isn’t it?”

Myungjun leaned further over the rail and looked into the depth under his feet. The vertigo hit him completely unprepared. Staggering a little, he stepped back and turned away from the void below. “It’s really high.” The sound of his own voice surprised him, it sounded small, scared.

“The secret is not to look down,” Bin’s smile wrapped him like a blanket and his warm fingers found Myungjun’s. “Come, try again, the view is beautiful,” Bin tagged gently at his hand.

“No,” he had no idea if it was the soju talking or if he just didn’t care anymore. “It’s not the view that’s beautiful. _You_ are beautiful.” 

He saw Bin freeze, their fingers still interlaced, but the other’s easy smile disappearing, giving way to something else, something heavy with anticipation.

“You are so beautiful it hurts when I look at you. You look like… like a…” The embarrassment burned his ears crimson and clamped his mouth shut.

“Like what?” The words were breathed out, rather than spoken, and Bin’s eyes were not leaving Myungjun’s, making him blush even more.

“Get me more drunk and I’ll tell you. Can’t tell you now, it’s too embarrassing,” he cringed, looking at his feet.

“I can do that,” a cheeky grin flashed momentarily across Bin’s face, restoring some of the lightness that had been there before Myungjun’s remark. “Let’s get you wasted, I want to hear what I look like,” he pulled Myugjun close. 

_Too close._

“Stop it,” he disentangled himself from Bin’s arms. “Not here, Binnie.” Immediately, his cheeks burned hot as the endearment slipped out of his mouth.

“Binnie?” 

“I’m… I’m sorry, I heard her calling you that. Sooyun, I mean… and I liked it. But if you don’t…”

“No, I like when you say it,” Bin interrupted him quickly, eyes crinkling in a smile radiating so much warmth it made Myungjun feeling like he was on a beach in the height of summer. “I like it.”

He felt Bin’s arms sneak around his waist again and with a heavy heart he pulled away. “Binnie, I mean it. This is not the place.”

“I don’t care.” Bin’s pout was endearing but Myungjun knew he had to pull himself together.

“You should. This is your home turf. Way too many people know you here, the dance studio is literally around the corner; I don’t want people start spreading rumours, not when you’re running a business potentially involving ultra-conservative parents.”

The dejection on Bin’s face was heartbreaking. Myungjun watched him for a second, an idea forming in his head, the low pull of sudden excitement in his stomach growing tighter.

“Do you want to go somewhere else? I know a place where nobody would care what we did.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when Bin grabbed his hand and started dragging him through the crowd.

“What are you doing?” He was half-laughing but to be completely honest with himself, Bin was scaring him a little.

The pull on his hand loosened a little, “We are going somewhere else.”

……………..

They stood in the lobby, waiting for the lift, the space between them charged like the air before an electric storm.

……………

Once sitting in the cab, Bin’s hand closed around his and Myungjun found it hard to breathe. He knew where they were heading, both literally and metaphorically, and the anticipation was gripping at his throat, constricting his airways and making his head swim.

In a way, it would be so easy to kiss Bin right now – but he found himself stalling on purpose, postponing what he knew would come, feeling the expectation in the squeeze of Bin’s fingers, hearing it in his own breath and ironically finding pleasure in the wait, in the stretching-out the time, like a child eyeing a chocolate bar and making the delight last longer by putting it up on a shelf for ten more minutes.

The neighbourhood the taxi was driving through was changing now, a far cry from the glamorous beauty of Marine City, full of glass and marble. The opulent skyscrapers gave way to smaller shops and slightly run-down apartment buildings. The streets around them were shabbier, the street lighting more sparse, the litter on the pavement being blown away by the wind that was rising, the scent coming through the driver’s open window that of salt, rotting fish and oil, betraying the vicinity of docks somewhere out of sight, but close. 

He noticed Bin shifting a little uneasily and smiled at him, “We are nearly there.”

……………

Once he paid the driver, Myungjun took Bin’s hand and they crossed the street, heading towards a converted brick warehouse, somewhat dilapidated, from which the sound of bass-heavy music was emanating and a pair of bulky bouncers were guarding the open front door, illuminated by a neon sign above.

Bin slowed down as they were approaching and slid his hand out of his grip. Myungjun smiled, pulled him closer and took his hand again, interlacing their fingers, “Nobody cares here, Binnie, we can do whatever we want.”

“What is this place then?” Bin’s voice betrayed a hint of nervousness but he didn’t let go of Myungjun’s hand.

“Have you ever been to a gay club?”

“Oh,” the comprehension dawned on Bin’s face. “No, I haven’t.”

“There is a first for everything, I suppose.” He grinned at Bin as they came to a halt in front of the entrance, pool of dim light spilling onto the pavement from the open door, music carrying over the hum of human voices, people standing outside in little groups, laughing, shouting good-natured insults at each other.

The two bouncers turned to have a look at the newcomers and their stern faces were suddenly transformed by warm smiles that seemed to have thrown Bin completely. Myungjun felt his sideway glance as he smiled back at the bodyguards.

“Hey, MJ!” one of them roared at him, a broad grin on the beefy face rather softening his otherwise threatening presence, “we thought you were dead or something. Where the hell have you been for so long?”

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

“Welcome to my home turf.”

Myungjun entered, pulling Bin by his hand. They were greeted by a vast, cavernous room heaving with people, cast by dim lights and filled with pounding music, the darkness sliced in regular intervals by laser beams criss-crossing the space; a far cry from the polished glamour of ClubExx. The building itself was enormous, the high ceiling betraying its past as a warehouse, exposed brick walls and steel beams giving it a gritty, edgy appearance. It would have felt almost uninviting, had it not been for many rainbow decorations adorning the walls and comfortable seating areas with squishy old sofas, beanbags and cushions scattered all around the edges of the enormous dance floor in the centre.

They both stood rooted to the spot for a while, their senses adjusting to the noise and flashing lights.

Myungjun’s heart gave a little squeeze. He forgot how much he liked this place. There was an electrifying sense of excitement in the air, mass euphoria that seemed to be penetrating everything and everyone around, people jumping with their hands in the air, the lasers transforming their bodies momentarily into flashing, colourful aliens.

Right in front of them, a couple were dancing, completely absorbed in each other, an island of oblivion amidst the frenzy, a dark-haired young man, maybe Spanish, thought Myungjun, his arms around a tall, ethereally beautiful boy, vaguely reminding him of Dongmin. They were barely moving, eyes locked, with so much tension between them that the air around was almost crackling with static. When the boy leaned forward and they finally kissed, Myungjun realised he was crushing Bin’s hand so hard he nearly broke his fingers.

Turning quickly, he wanted to apologise but caught Bin staring at them too, completely mesmerized.

“I like this place.” The hint of excitement in Bin’s voice was unmistakable and Myungjun hid a smile.

A small man in his mid-forties, dressed in black from head to toe, his dark purple hair the only pop of colour, approached them with an expansive sweep of his arms.

“MJ, my friend! Long time no see! I am honoured that you will be gracing my humble premises with your presence tonight. How are you, darling? I missed seeing you around.” He enveloped Myungjun in a hug.

Myungjun felt hot all over and tried his best to extricate himself from his clasp, “Hi, Mansoo, lovely to see you again. Uh, this is Bin.”

“Ooh la-la,” Mansoo gave Myungjun an over-exaggerated nudge in the ribs, “you picked a real stunner for tonight. Welcome,” he turned to Bin, “I’m Mansoo. Haven’t seen you around here.”

“It’s my first time.” Bin, bowing politely, looked so sweet and innocent that Myungjun felt an urge to get him as far away from the older man’s prying eyes as possible. Mansoo didn’t seem to notice his discomfort and clearly enjoyed the sight of Bin’s fresh-faced beauty.

“Well, enjoy the night, honey,” he gave Bin one last appraising look. “ But I don’t need to tell you that, I’m sure you will. MJ, our resident hedonist will make sure it will be worth it.” His tone was heavy with innuendos.

Having had enough of sleazy talk, Myungjun slapped his back,” Don’t worry, I will take make sure Bin has a great time tonight. Now if you excuse us,” and dragged Bin away from him as speedily as possible, a quiet chuckle following them as they started pushing their way through the sweaty mass of bodies.

“What was that about?” Bin frowned and jerked his head towards the entrance.

“Who, Mansoo? He owns the place. Ignore him, he is just a little too much, always been like that. Flamboyant talk, dirty remarks – I’ve known him for years, he is harmless. Let’s get the drinks first. What do you want? Another raspberry mojito?”

“No,” Bin ducked his head, smiling shyly, “people would make fun of me, it’s such a girly drink. Just beer and soju.”

“Binnie,” Myugjun took Bin’s hands and pulled them towards him, “look at me. Nobody laughs at anybody here. You are free to drink what you want, to dress how you please, to dance with whom you like. Ok?”

“Ok.” Bin’s face brightened up and Myungjun felt warm inside.

_Like he sun breaking through the cloud._

“So, what is it going to be?”

“Still, I’ll have soju and beer. We’re going to drink the same thing together so I can make you drunk faster – remember?”

“Ah – you haven’t forgotten?” Myungjun groaned in embarrassment.

“Nope. I’m gonna make you drunk, baby,” Bin’s eyes were suddenly laughing, his voice adopting a teasing sing-song quality, “I’m gonna make you so drunk, you will be telling me all your secrets.” He did a goofy victory dance, trying to poke Myungjun’s side.

“Jesus,” to hide his burning ears from being called baby, Myungjun started pushing his way towards the bar, when he felt a body pressing into his back. “Just helping you to get through,” Bin’s cheeky giggle tickled his ear and his arm snaked around Myungjun’s waist, almost lifting him off the ground. 

“You are too small,” Bin was clearly killing himself laughing inside and with a politely exaggerated excuse me, coming through, excuse me, he more or less carried Myungjun to the bar.

“Bin, let go, I can walk, thank you!”

Still in fits of hilarity, Bin set him down but stayed plastered onto his back while Myungjun was ordering their drinks and didn’t move when they arrived. 

“Let go, Binnie,” Myungjun chuckled, trying to free himself from his clasp. “There’s your drink.”

“No,” Bin giggled and hugged him tighter to his chest, merely extending his right arm to accept the glass. “Can’t let go, I’m busy right now,” and started trailing his lips down Myungjun’s cheek. The beer in his hand didn’t as much as moved an inch and Myungjun marvelled at the achievement, seeing that his own drink started to tilt dangerously the moment Bin’s lips made contact with his skin.

He took a swig from the glass and suddenly thought what the hell. He set the drink on the counter and felt himself relaxing in Bin’s arms; shutting his eyes, everything seemed more real, their closeness, the strength of Bin’s arms holding him tight, the softness of his lips sliding along his neck now.

_Finally. Bin. Oh my god. ___

__

__“MJ, darling!” The voice right in front of him nearly caused him a heart attack. Bin froze too, didn’t let go though, merely lifting his head from the crook of Myungjun’s neck._ _

____

“Nana, hey,” despite feeling like screaming, Myungjun’s demeanour was warmth and politeness itself, “how are you?”

____

_No point venting my sexual frustration on a good friend, is it?_

____

He smiled at the petite woman wearing a ridiculously bright yellow overall who was beaming at him, arms outstretched.

____

If Myungjun should ever choose a second best friend after Jinwoo, it would be Nana. Ten years older, she was another older sister to him, an alter ego to Myungsoon, one who would encourage him to be wild, to be free, to go with the flow and enjoy life. He always suspected Nana wasn’t the best advisor, not the most mature mentor for him; she was great fun to be around though. His heart always surged with joy when seeing her – but today he wished to be left alone with Bin.

____

No such luck.

____

“Hey, so nice to see you here, I missed you!” she kissed him on the cheek. “And who might this be?”

____

Myungjun was about to introduce them but Bin beat him to it. “Hi, I’m Bin.”

____

“Now, we need you to come here more often,” Nana gave him a thorough once-over. “The beauty levels would rise rapidly.”

____

Bin laughed and squirmed a little, clearly self-conscious, and Myungjun enjoyed how he clung to him even closer.

____

“Where is Hayoon?” he discreetly scanned their surroundings. Not that he wanted to get rid of Nana, not at all – except that he did.

____

“At home with a terrible cold. She chucked me out tonight, said she needed some peace and quiet. Apparently, I fuss too much. How outrageous to say something like that. And she supposedly loves me,” Nana’s adoration for her girlfriend was evident in her every word.

____

“Anyway, come, the rest of the gang is here. We haven’t seen you for ages,” she pointed in the direction of the bar, where Myungjun could see a group of his friends, the ‘Saturday regulars,’ as they used to call themselves.

____

He hesitated. To catch up with friends would be nice but he had other plans for tonight.

____

“Come on.” Nana sensed his reluctance, leaned closer and whispered into his ear, “Come on, MJ, take the baby boy with you. He can shag you later.”

____

Myungjun’s cheeks reddened and his stomach contracted with an unpleasant sense of foreboding that his past might catch up with him tonight. For a split of a second he felt a sharp doubt whether coming here had been a good idea. But it was too late, the dice had been cast. 

____

……………

____

As the night progressed, Myungjun’s misgivings proved justified. The night wasn’t going very well.

Everything started just fine. The group greeted Myungjun with open arms, eager to reconnect, keen to welcome him back into the fold. Bin blended in seemingly enough; his cute smile and disarming sweetness made him a nice addition to the mix. His sunny disposition didn’t last long though and Myungjun could feel Bin’s smile gradually losing its radiance, his zeal to join in missing the initial sincerity. With every passing hour, Bin’s mood grew more dark and Myungjun’s unease that he felt for the first time when Nana clearly dismissed him as one of Myungjun’s one-night-stands was slowly turning into a sense of dread. 

____

He tried in vain to slow down what he felt was a disaster coming: he asked Bin to come with him and dance in a futile attempt to get him away from the group, but Bin just shook his head – no, I’m fine, they’re your friends, we’ll stay – and remained by his side, as if having a death wish, still draped over Myungjun, still hugging him but barely exchanging a word with him anymore.

____

As the hour grew late he eventually stopped laughing at people’s jokes, didn’t try joining in with the conversations anymore and seemed increasingly withdrawn. He would go and buy a round when it was his turn and accepted drinks from others, but Myungjun watched with unease how his face was growing paler and his eyes more bloodshot with every beer he drank.

____

The others didn’t notice his inner turmoil and were laughing, joking, reminiscing about old times, teasing Myungjun mercilessly about his reputation.

____

_I can’t take this anymore. We should just leave. He is not stupid - by now, he figured out what is going on, he will…_

____

Someone poked him gently in the side.

____

“Looks like you will definitely add another beautiful notch onto your bedpost, darling,” Nana returned to the group, a drink in her hand, after having caught up with an ex-colleague of hers that she hasn’t seen in years. She grinned at Bin, who was still holding Myungjun in a backhug but gave up all pretence of being sociable by now and simply buried his face in Myungjun’s hair, occasionally pressing a kiss on top of his head. “You might want to stop buying him drinks though, otherwise your little boy won’t perform tonight.”

____

Myungjun stiffened. He knew Nana didn’t mean any harm; he himself used to say similar things in the past, without any thoughts how his dates felt – but today her remark hurt. This was Bin.

____

He inhaled sharply but before he could say anything, Bin spoke for the first time in what seemed like hours. “It think I need some air,” and let his arms drop so abruptly that Myugjun staggered backwards. 

____

“Binnie?” he spun around, trying to stop him but Bin was disappearing through the crowd already, without a single backward glance.

____

“Oh,” Nana clasped a hand over her mouth in faux concern. “A bit sensitive, aren’t we? Looks like you picked a little snowflake tonight, darling.” Her laugh, usually so vibrant, grated against the taut strings of Myungjun’s nerves all of a sudden.

____

“Will you stop that?” The irritation was showing in the sharp snap of his voice and everyone ceased talking and looked up, a little shocked.

____

Jaewoo was first to break the silence, “Or maybe he wasn’t to be another notch? Do you like him, by any chance?”

____

Myungjun’s face grew hot. He forgot how insightful Jaewoo was, how quick to read between the lines.

____

His crimson cheeks must have answered the question. “Oh shit, you do like him. And we talked about him like he was a piece of meat. Sorry MJ.”

____

“It’s not me you should be apologising to.”

____

“Why did you bring him here though?” Jaewoo’s eyebrows knitted in confusion. “It’s not like you don’t know what you used to do here every weekend. How were we supposed to know he was different?”

____

“I have no idea what I was thinking!” Myugjun buried his face in his hands with a groan. “We just wanted to have a night out?”

____

“You could have gone to your place instead,” Nana wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, “maybe a night in would have been a better idea.”

____

“It’s too early, we haven’t even kissed yet properly,” by now Myungjun was so mortified, he stopped caring about who knew about the sorry state of his current love life.

____

“Oh no!” Nana gasped softly. “He really is something more then. Why are you still here? Go and talk to him. He must be truly worth it if you haven’t tried to get into his pants the moment you saw him. Go!” she turned Myungjun around and gave him a shove in the back. “Go!”

____

……………

____

He found Bin across the road, sitting on the pavement. When he saw Myungjun approaching, he jumped up, anger and confusion clearly etched in his face.

____

“What are we doing here, Myungjun? What’s your plan?” Bin stood in front of him, pain in his voice jabbing through Myungjun’s chest. “If you wanted to find somebody who would pound your ass tonight, you didn’t need me. I’m sure you would have found a volunteer easily; in there, everyone seems to know you really well.”

____

Myungjun hung his head in shame. The words stung but he knew he deserved them. The vulgarity of the comment coming from Bin’s mouth shocked him more than he liked to admit though.

____

_It’s my fault. I have dragged him into this, into my own dirt._

____

“Why did you bring me here? Is this how you see me - as one of your hook-ups?”

____

“No, please, Bin, no! I brought you here because I wanted to dance with you. Nobody judges here, here we don’t’ need to pretend to be somebody else.”

____

“Everybody is looking at me as your arm candy, everybody is making stupid innuendos!” Bin’s eyes were horrified. “They talk to you and everybody is ignoring me as if I had no brain, just my dick. Everybody is expecting you to take me home tonight, like a toy you picked. Is this how it works with you? Is it? You’d better answer me because I think it’s time for me to get to know you better. To know the real Myungjun. Go on, what else do I need to know?”

____

Myungjun would prefer for the Earth to open and swallow him than to watch Bin’s hurting but it wasn’t that easy to conjure an earthquake on a whim.

____

He knew Bin was right. Maybe not everybody had ignored him tonight but there had been enough innuendos and lewd remarks said in the last couple of hours to give Bin a pretty accurate picture of what people thought of them.

____

“I’m sorry Binnie, I… “ Myungjun’s started to well up. The words stuck in his throat, a lump of regret blocking his thoughts, his vision, his breathing.

____

“Come on, Myungjun. I’m waiting.” There was a sudden steel edge in Bin’s soft, young voice.

____

“You’re right,” Myungjun whispered, “this is who I am. Who I was. This was my stomping ground where I used to hook up with… “ His voice shook, his whole body was shaking, but he pulled himself together. “Anyway, I’m not gonna blame my life choices on my parents’ failed marriage, nor on me being left alone without love and all that. Plenty of people have it much worse and don’t end up…”

____

“Screwing anything that moves.” Bin’s words were cutting right into his flesh, into his heart.

____

“Binnie, please, hear me out. Please.”

____

“Ok,” Bin crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. His face, cold and closed off, scared Myungjun a little. “Go on.”

____

“Ok,” he gulped shakily. “I didn’t tell you about any of this because I don’t want this kind of life anymore. I just don’t. Something has changed, I don’t know what, but I want something more.”

____

Bin didn’t move, didn’t look at him, eyes trained on the ground, his expression sullen. And yet, he was still there, listening. There was still hope.

____

“I shouldn’t have brought you here tonight though, I really shouldn’t have. This was a mistake; I haven’t been here for quite a while and…” 

____

“Yeah, I could see that; they were all welcoming you like a prodigal son,” Bin’s huff was laced with sarcasm and Myungjun gulped down fresh flow of tears.

____

“But I wanted to dance with you, to hold you, I wanted to… I wanted to have something more with you… and not just tonight.” Tears were rolling down his cheeks. “I like you. I like you, Binnie. I was hoping that we could be something… more.” He couldn’t carry on anymore, the despair got better of him. “I suppose it’s over now. There is no point in pretending anymore, is it? You go. You don’t need to pretend, just… just go if you want to.”

____

_He will just leave now, there will be no us, never. It’s over._

____

The silence that followed seemed to be stretching forever. 

____

After what seemed like eternity, when Myungjun all but abandoned his hope, Bin’s eyes suddenly found his and there was something else beside anger in his look. A fleeting flash of something calmer, more thoughtful, more wise. A glimmer of possibility.

____

“I’m not going anywhere.” There was still anger in Bin’s voice but a stubborn determination as well and Myungjun’s heart fluttered with the tiniest flicker of hope.

____

“I have no right to judge what you did before we met. It’s your life. I’m just… angry. This all,” he gestured vaguely around him, “made me feel so, I don’t know, dirty. Used. The way they all talked about you, about me, about us.”

____

Bin looked down, kicking dirt with his shoe, looking painfully young and vulnerable all of a sudden. “It reminded me of… him, you know. For him, I was just something quick on the side – and tonight it looked like I was going back in time. Different players, same shit. It felt the same, Myungjun, exactly the same!”

____

The pained accusation in his voice was piercing through Myungjun’s heart.

____

“I didn’t want to believe at first what they were saying about you - but you didn’t deny it! And if all of it were true, why would you treat me differently than the others? It felt like I would be a quickie for fun tonight – again! Do you understand that? You could have… explained. You could have warn me before we came here, you know.”

____

“I was scared you would leave if I told you what my life used to be like.” Myungjun hung his head in shame.

____

“Yeah, and you not telling me helped you exactly… how?” Bin’s anger was still there but it was dissipating slowly, Myungjun could feel it in his voice, and his own knees started shaking with relief, with gratitude.

____

“I’m so sorry, Binnie. Shall we just leave?”

____

“No,” Bin suddenly pulled him close. His eyes reminded Myungjun of the moment in the taxi two moths ago. There was the same hunger in them, the same desire, now heightened by two months of longing, and Myugjun’s knees weakened.

____

“I haven’t danced with you yet,” Bin breathed into his ear. “Right now, we are going back inside,” his hands were sliding up Myungjun’s arms, settling on his neck and tilting his head up, his eyes burning holes into Myungjun’s “and we are going to do what _I_ want. I’m not going to listen to anymore stupid talk, I don’t want to know what you used to do here, I don’t want any more drinks – we are going to dance.”

____

On their way back, holding hands, they bumped into Nana.

____

She looked up at Bin’s face, clearly uncomfortable, “Look, Bin, I’m afraid we haven’t behaved very nicely towards you earlier.”

____

“It’s ok,” Bin’s voice betrayed his impatience and he made a move to walk away, pulling Myungjun with him, hardly looking at Nana at all.

____

“No, it’s not ok. I’m sorry. I want to apologise.”

____

Bin stopped, relented, his little smile a reluctant peace offering, “Apology accepted. We’re good.” 

____

Nana visibly relaxed. Myungjun gave her a thumbs-up as hey squeezed past her towards the dance floor.

____

…………….

____

They dance. They dance until sweat glistens on Bin’s face and runs down Myungjun’s spine. The space is theirs, nobody else matters, others just a blurry background, becoming inconsequential, non-existent.

____

Bin’s hands slide over Myungjun’s body, pulling him close, letting go; it feels like they are connected by an invisible piece of elastic – too close and the connection becomes too lax; too far and it pulls them back close with a renewed force.

____

Dance is a mating ritual, Myungjun thinks, but it’s so much more than mindless grinding with random strangers. Staring into each other’s eyes while dancing holds incredible power; one doesn’t need the touch to feel the connection, to peek into the other’s soul.

____

Muyngjun longs to touch though, to feel Bin’s skin under his fingers; the desire gets too much. Bin had shed his jacket earlier and the bare skin of his arms is an open invitation. Myungjun’s palms slide up his forearms, trace the muscles of his shoulders. He slips his hands under the fabric of Bin’s top – thank you, crazy designers, for armholes this generous – and watches the beautiful face in front of him coming undone as he drags his splayed fingers across Bin’s chest.

____

The next thing he knows, Bin spins him around and the moment their bodies collide, Bin’s right arm holds him firmly in place. His left hand start exploring his body, fingers trailing up until they reach his neck and flex around his throat.

____

The fear finds him totally unprepared. He realises with shock how much bigger and stronger Bin is, how vulnerable his hands make him feel right now.

____

He stills in Bin’s hold. He had had his share of close encounters in the past, had to talk his way out of some sticky situations but he never got hurt. Ever. He doesn’t really believe Bin to be violent but he had seen what anger combined with alcohol could do to the sweetest of people sometimes.

____

_And Bin was angry, he was really angry with me._

____

He readies himself for whatever might be happening next, feeling his breath quickening into panicky gasps.

____

But the pain never comes. Instead, Bin’s fingers on his throat relax, tilting his neck gently, and Myungjun feels featherlike kisses being pressed lightly along his jawline. He lets his head fall back and melts in Bin’s arms, partly from the heat of the moment, partly from relief.

____

“You haven’t told me yet what I look like.” The words whispered in his ear send a hot shiver down his spine. There is hunger in Bin’s voice but not a hint of anger or malice. The shame washes over him. _Oh Binnie. How could I think, even for a second, that you would hurt me?_

____

He turns around and Bin lets him, his arms gentle, a cheeky smirk on his face. The hunger is still there though, Myungjun can see it in Bin’s eyes, he feels it in the quickening of his breathing.

____

“So,” Bin bites his lip and pulls Myungjun close to him, so close he can feel the sweat from Bin’s top seeping into the fabric of his shirt. “What do I look like?”

____

He cringes in Bin’s arms and ducks his head, “It’s so embarrassing. And people might hear.”

____

Bin lets go. He takes Myungjun’s hand and leads him away from the dancing crowd, weaving his way through people around the dance floor lounging on sofas, sitting on the floor, drinking, chatting.

____

They find an empty spot. Bin leans against the wall and pulls Myungjun between his legs. “Nobody will hear you here.” His voice is teasing and Myungjun buries his head in Bin’s chest.

____

“You will laugh at me,” he mumbles into his shirt.

____

“You promised,” the grin in Bin’s voice grows more devilish and he tickles Myungjun’s ribs, hard.

____

“Don’t!” Myungjun jumps away from him, squealing. “If you do this again, I will never tell you anything. Ever!”

____

“Ok, sorry, sorry, won’t do that again. Come here.” Bin’s eyes are creased with laughter.

____

“I don’t believe you,” Myungjun fakes indignation. “You will try to touch me the moment I start talking.”

____

“I won’t.”

____

“You will, I know that!”

____

“I won’t. Look,” Bin raises his arms slowly in mock surrender, and folds them above his head. “See? You’re safe. And I won’t even look at you,” he closes his eyes.

____

“Ok.” Suddenly emboldened by the liberty to look at Bin freely, to devour him with his eyes, Myungjun doesn’t care anymore who might overhear them. “Have you heard the story of fallen angels?”

____

“No,” Bin shakes his head, settling more comfortably against the wall, eyes shut, like a kid falling asleep, listening to a story.

____

“I heard it a long time ago, don’t really remember whether it’s Hebrew or Christian mythology.” With Bin’s body like a magnet in front of him, Myungjun steps closer. “Fallen angels were angels who rebelled against God.”

____

By the way his body stiffens, how his breathing changes, he can tell Bin feels his closeness. “Some say it was just a rebellion, a matter of philosophy and power, if you want. Some say, they have fallen because they came to Earth and experienced – love.”

____

He places one hand on Bin’s chest and feels the other’s sharp intake of breath, Bin’s heartbeat hammering against his own palm. “Don’t look.”

____

“I’m not,” Bin exhales shakily but doesn’t move, doesn’t open his eyes.

____

“Since we met, I know exactly what a fallen angel would look like if he fell from heaven and wanted to make love to me.” Myungjun leans in to whisper into Bin’s ear.

“He would look like you.”

____

Bin’s breathing stops under his hand for a second and Myungjun’s stomach drops. _Oh God, have I embarrassed myself?_

Next moment, Bin’s kiss sucks all air out of his lungs and any lucid thought out of his mind.

____

They are drowning in each other. Time loses all its meaning; when they finally break apart to catch some breath, Myungjun is almost in pain from the overwhelming intensity, the happiness that is filling him to the brim.

____

He feels Bin lifting him up and he wraps his legs around his waist; there is no shame in him left, he couldn’t care less about what people around think about them, his only thought is Bin, Bin, Bin.

“Do you want to get away from here?” His own words are an echo of those spoken many times in the past to many others, but this is not a stranger, falling apart from pleasure under Myungjun’s fingers for one night, this is Bin; Bin with green eyes on the train, Bin smiling at him over a steaming ramen, Bin in the sandpit surrounded by children.

____

His fingers tangle in Bin’s hair, pulling his head close, “My place? It’s closer.”

____

"Yeah," Bin groans into his mouth, fingers digging into Myungjun's back.

____

His feet reluctantly find the ground again. “Let’s go,” he cups Bin’s face with one hand while the other looks for Bin’s fingers.

But they find they can’t move; the pull is too strong, the closeness too much. They kiss again, forgetting their plans, brains in temporary shutdown, fingers and mouths locked.

____

...............

“Sunshine?” The familiar voice makes Myungjun jump with fright.

____

He breaks the kiss and stands frozen for a moment, like a deer caught in the headlights, Bin panting in front of him, all swollen lips and messed up hair, looking breathtakingly beautiful – but staring over Myungjun’s shoulder at somebody right behind them. Myugjun’s heart sinks as he watches Bin’s look change from shocked to furious when an arm from behind sneaks its way around Myungjun’s waist and pulls them apart.

____

Bin’s arms fall off him; his anger is obvious, thinly veiled by a sarcastic incline of his head and shot-up eyebrows. His eyes are piercing, demanding explanation but Myungjun knows the answer won’t solve anything; it will only make things go to hell.

____

He doesn’t need to look behind him. He knows who is there.

____

 

____


	9. Chapter 9

 

“Wow, you are blinding, baby. Can I call you sunshine?”

Yukwon had him from hello. He was the bane of Myungjun’s existence. He was _the_ need, _the_ addiction, _the_ drug that Myungjun was unable to resist, no matter how much he tried.

Beautiful, sexy, talented and cocky, he embodied everything Myungjun looked for when on the prowl through Busan clubs.

They had met when Myungjun was in his final year at university and life was an endless stream of parties, clubbing and waking up in strangers’ beds. Their first drunken encounter one hot July night at a friend of a friend’s house didn’t leave many significant memories bar the first sentence Yukwon said to him - both having arrived with different groups of people and losing sight of each other soon after – but it stuck in Myungjun’s memory, together with Yukwon’s beautiful eyebrows and his crooked, slightly condescending smile.

They slept together two weeks later, after stumbling upon each other in one of the Busan’s less salubrious bars, and Myugjun was hooked.

Yukwon’s beauty was highly addictive. With shockingly black eyebrows, like wings of a graceful crane contrasting sharply with his white skin and plump red lips, he reminded Myungjun of Snow White – or at least he embodied his mental image of what the princess would look like if she was born in Korea. In Myungjun’s eyes, Snow White had Yukwon’s face.

In the artistic circles, Yukwon was notorious as the naughty child of the community. Blessed with abundance of talent but no reliable work ethics, he was perpetually broke, barely surviving off kind-spirited friends and copious love interests who would feed him for weeks until he managed to hold on to a job for couple of months – never longer than that – or sell one of his sketches, all brilliant pieces, intricate and bold at the same time, mostly black-and-white, after which he would host an extravagant party as a thank you for everyone’s generosity. In the space of couple of weeks there would be no money for food again.

Myungjun knew there was no chance of them having any meaningful relationship together - Yukwon made no secret of the fact that he didn’t want a stable partner, that he didn’t want to be bound to anybody. Myungjun understood that and accepted it quietly. He had learned with time to be happy with what Yukwon was willing to give, even if it was painfully little. Little was better than nothing, Myungjun reasoned. 

Their paths had crossed often enough for Myungjun to cave in every time they met and have his heart filled with a renewed bit of hope each time, only to be broken again; the time between their encounters never long enough for him to get over Yookwon completely.

As shaky as their relationship was, it managed to survive for years – Yukwon wasn’t possessive because he didn’t love him and Myungjun didn’t refuse him because he wanted him too much and, frankly, didn’t find anyone else whom he would like enough to give up Yookwon for good.

……………

In the days after meeting Bin for the first time, Myungjun felt himself growing more and more restless, more and more irritated. He wanted to call him but couldn’t make up his mind. Bin was hot – if he met him somewhere at the bar, he would be hitting on him straight away. Why on Earth did he have to be such goody-two-shoes though? Too pure for this world. 

_But I promised I would call him, and I want to._

_No. No. I can’t do this to him. He deserves someone better._

Every night he went to bed with a firm resolve to call Bin, every day he found an excuse not to.

_He is too innocent, it would never work out._

After almost two weeks of tossing and turning every night and virtually no sleep, he broke the rule No. 1 of his life – no clubbing mid-week – and visited all his old haunts in futile attempt to find someone for the night to take his mind off Bin.

His luck seemed to have run out that night though. Or maybe hot as hell, charming people didn’t go clubbing on Wednesday. Perhaps mid-week clubbing was only for losers.

He halfway made up his mind to go home, seething on the inside with supressed anger at the world in general and Bin in particular, for being too pure, too perfect, too everything, when a familiar figure emerged right in front of him.

Yukwon.

Strangely enough, the sight of him didn’t elicit the same level of excitement in Myungjun as it used to, but seeing him felt like slipping into an old pair of slippers – comfort in the familiarity.

_He might not even want to hook up tonight._

The thought didn’t send the usual bout of panic through his body; instead, it left him completely unfazed. Yukwon must have felt the indifference and their roles reversed that night, with Yukwon trying hard and Myungjun being the blasé pursued one. It was a balm on his battered, sleep-deprived ego. 

_I don’t need to pretend to be better than I am with Yukwon. He knows me._

……………

They stumbled into his bedroom, Yukwon his usual alluring self, oozing charm that would have made Myungjun’s knees buckle in the past. But not this time. Something had indeed changed and it scared him how indifferent he felt even now, with Yukwon so eager, so willing to please. It was too much effort to analyse his feelings at that precise moment though; he thought it much easier to play along; after all, what they had in bed was never bad.

But this time it wasn’t quite the same.

After Yukwon fell asleep, his beautiful face looking much younger and more innocent without his perpetual little smirk, Myungjun couldn’t bear it any longer. He slowly disentangled himself from his arms and sat on the floor, watching his lover’s peaceful expression and feeling absolutely nothing but emptiness. 

Can even the strongest feelings fade? Will all obsessions fizzle out eventually? The nothing in his chest felt like a cold heavy lump, making his breathing hard. For years he had been forcing himself to get Yukwon out of his mind, to get him from under his skin, painfully aware of the imbalance in their relationship, of his own neediness for Yukwon’s love and the other’s inability to give him what he wanted – and would always fail.

Today he saw with perfect clarity that at some point along the line, without even trying, he had fallen out of love.

He got up and went to the kitchen where he sat at the table in the dark, his own life flashing in front of him like a reel of an old movie.

Those countless times when he made breakfast for Yukwon the morning after, hoping against all odds they would spend the day together - perhaps watching something mindless on TV and cuddling – only to be crushed when, after thanking him profusely for the breakfast, Yukwon would always excuse himself with a charming smile and depart, leaving Myungjun in silent tears.

Those countless times when he sat here, in the same chair, dreaming that one day they would go on a trip together and they would buy silly souvenirs to take home as a reminder of their day and he would take hundreds of pictures of both of them and pick the most beautiful one and have it framed and hung up.

Those countless times when he dreamt of Yukwon bringing him a cheesy gift, something little, just because.

He looked around at his high-tech, immaculately clean kitchen, all accessories colour-coordinated and gleaming, and his heart fell.

He loved his kitchen; it was the only room in his apartment that he took pride in but tonight everything about it felt wrong. There were no kitschy mugs with cheesy slogans here, bought as Valentine gifts; no framed pictures of him and Yukwon with their arms around each other and laughing; no little keepsakes brought from holidays spent together in some God-forsaken corners of the world.

His kitchen didn’t have any of these. It was beautiful, lonely and devoid of human warmth – just like my heart, thought Myungjun. He looked around him, taking in the spotless room with no traces of love, thought about everything that could have been, everything he could have had with Yukwon – and that he now knew with absolute certainty would never happen – then put his head on the smooth surface of his beautiful teak kitchen table and cried.

He cried over all those wasted years when he had tried to make Yukwon into something the other couldn’t become, cried because he suddenly didn’t feel anything for the man who was asleep in his bed and who had been creeping into his dreams for so long, cried for his love that perhaps hadn’t been love at all, only a fixation - or maybe it just hadn’t been strong enough and was now dead, like a withered leaf fallen on the ground in November.

He cried, looking back at the life he had led, so empty even though seemingly full of pleasure, and cried because he missed a beautiful boy with a cat-like face; he missed his smile and wanted to know if he was happy, whether he ate well tonight and was safe at home sleeping, but he didn’t know almost anything about him because he didn’t call him and that hurt. He cried because he had been afraid to call, to call Bin who was as pure as fresh snow in Taebaek mountains and he felt dirty compared to him because he had lied; there was no one in his life but there had been someone in his heart for a long time and he was still in his bed right now, and somehow, suddenly, it felt so wrong, and he cried because he wanted to start afresh and didn’t know how.

After spending all his tears, eyes dry and stinging from mourning, he went to bed and held his lover for the very last time, his lover who never became a friend nor a soul mate, and dreamt of Bin who one day might become all of those things.

……………

“You are breaking my heart, sunshine. I missed you. It’s been, what, a month? No, more than that. You never called.”

Yukwon was right. It has been more than a month since they spent the night together – 6 weeks and 3 days to be precise – but he was counting the days for a very different reason.

In the morning after their last night together Myungjun had woken up with an inexplicable urge for change. 

That morning he could hardly restrain himself from throwing Yukwon out the moment he woke up and saw him in his bed, but managed to check himself. This was all his own fault and there was no point venting his anger on someone else. He cooked them both breakfast and tried to hurry Yukwon along.

“God, you’re awful today. What happened to my sunshine?”

“It’s Thursday. Your sunshine, along with most of other grown-ups, needs to go and earn some money.”

…………….

Coming home from work, he found he couldn’t sit still anymore with his old life all around him. The apartment didn’t contain too many mementos of their time together - in the past he always bemoaned the lack of them – but even the few ones he had suddenly felt like an intrusion.

After sitting on the sofa for five minutes, feeling jittery and unable to decide, he had enough. With a firm resolve in his step, he went through his apartment, systematically looking for and throwing out things which reminded him of Yukwon.

A scarf Yukwon had left behind a year ago and which Myungjun hid so he could keep it, an old t-shirt of Myungjun’s that he liked to wear in the morning when he stayed over, a pair of tickets for a Big Bang concert they saw together in the brief couple of weeks they had been ‘together’ and which Myungjun treasured like gold, a coffee mug Yukwon always used when he came.

He even went through his phone and deleted the few selfies he took of them together.

The purge felt good. It was getting almost addictive, but when he found a sketch of Yukwon he did some six months ago (after having to beg Yookwon to pose for him for about a month), his resolve faltered.

Sinking onto the sofa with the picture in his hand, his eyes filled with moisture. The delicate strokes of the pencil, the beautiful features of Yukwon’s face, it all mocked him, made him unbearably sad. 

_So much time wasted. We both could have gone our separate ways and perhaps be happy with someone else._

In the end, he kept the sketch, putting it carefully in a big folder containing his other artwork.

_We had some good times as well. He deserves a place in my memories._

……………

The rubbish bin he had filled up earlier with the mementos of Yukwon was laughing in his face in the kitchen. He stared at it for a minute, resisting the sudden, desperate urge to take out everything he had piled into it earlier. 

_Come on, get a grip, you don’t need any of it. They were like crutches, helping to keep the illusion alive, the illusion that we had a future._

In the end, he tied the black bin liner and carried it outside. When it landed in one of the massive dustbins in the back yard with a loud thump, he felt a surge of lightness in his chest that hasn’t been there for years.

Coming back to the apartment, he couldn’t wait any longer. His first steps went straight to his bedroom where he grabbed the phone and dialled Bin’s number.

……………

“Hey, I really missed you, babe. You didn’t call like you usually do.”

“Yukwon, now’s not the time…” Myungjun groaned, painfully aware of Bin’s eyes not leaving him for a second, the supressed anger now being mixed with something akin to dread.

“Yeah, I can see you’re busy,” the sarcasm in Yukwon’s voice was new. So was the jealousy, Myungjun realised with shock, and something else. Was it hurt he was hearing?

“Yukwon, stop it,” he pleaded. He needed to get away from here, to get Bin away from Yukwon, from this place, he needed to go somewhere safe, someplace where lives wouldn’t get ruined.

_You cannot get him away from yourself. It’s too late._

“No, you stop it,” Yukwon’s voice was that of a petulant child. “You know I don’t mind you hooking up with anybody but it was like I didn’t exist since we last met. That’s not like you, sunshine.”

He was right and although much surprised by his reaction, Myungjun knew where he was coming from. Every time their paths had crossed, every time they had spent the night together, it was Myungjun who would call or text Yukwon in the next couple of days, desperately trying to cling onto him, to prolong the semblance of a relationship. Yukwon never initiated the contact but didn’t seem to mind either and Myungjun would cautiously begin to hope – until the next time when he would find Yukwon locking lips with someone else and the whole cycle of heartbreak begun again.

…………… 

”And you, baby boy,” Yukwon turned to Bin, standing in front of him, challenging, “don’t get your hopes up. He might like your dick tonight but he always comes back to me. Don’t you, sunshine?” he smiled at Myungjun, one hand caressing his cheek, ignoring Bin again, as if he wasn’t there at all.

Before Myungjun could react and send Yukwon to hell where he belonged, Bin spoke, his voice shaking with fury. 

“I don’t need to be listening to this crap. Bye Myungjun.” He shoved them both aside and left, pushing his way roughly through the crowd.

Myungjun stood like frozen to the spot, wanting to scream. For years he had been waiting for a reaction like this from Yukwon, for a sign the other missed him, felt possessive forwards him, felt jealous about the others Myungjun picked up on his Saturday nights out.

_But no, after all those years it must happen now, when I don’t give a shit anymore._

“I swear I could kill you right now,” he hissed at Yukwon, and leaving him to stand perplexed and alone, he ran outside after Bin. 

He found him striding down the street, walking so fast that he struggled to catch up.

“Bin, Bin, wait!”

Bin swivelled around, anger twisting his beautiful features, “Go back to your boyfriend, Myungjun.”

“Binnie, please! It’s not what you think!”

“What the hell? Really? Because to me it looks like it’s exactly what I think it is! You lied to me, Myungjun! I would never be here with you if I knew you have a… boyfriend!” He spat the word with so much venom that Myungjun felt his teeth clattering.

“Please Bin, please, he is not my boyfriend! I mean, we did try to be together once,” he had to think hard, the memory gone blurry all of a sudden, “two years ago I think - lasted for about three weeks. Didn’t work out. It was never meant to be. And it was ages ago! We are not together, Bin, please!”

So far so technically true, every word of it. He could have left it at that but he knew it was also a lie and it has finally caught up with him. 

It was time to come clean.

“He is not my boyfriend, Binnie. We just… sleep together sometimes.” He couldn’t believe he was saying it aloud. Spelled out like this, without any embellishments, it sounded so low, so awful. 

“Great. So you’re not together, you just fuck casually. That makes me feel so much better!” Bin’s look was incredulous, “I can’t believe I wanted to tell you… that I was hoping that tonight… You know what? Forget it.” 

To Myungjun’s astonishment, his eyes welled up with tears. “I’ve had enough. I liked you, Myungjun, I really liked you – but this is not how I imagined tonight going. I need to go home.” He turned around and started running away, leaving Myungjun standing on the pavement.”

“Bin! Binnie, wait!” 

Myungjun tore after him, desperate to save what couldn’t be saved. He grabbed his arm and nearly tripped over himself, “Please, let me explain, Bin!”

“What? What else is there to explain?” Bin’s stopped abruptly, voice shaking with rage. “Just tell me, have you two fucked after you told me there was nobody else?”

“Can I just…”

”Just shut up and tell me!” As if puzzled by what he just said, Bin paused, then shook his head, perplexed, “That doesn’t even make sense.”

The fleeting moment of lightness, however, disappeared as quickly as it came. Bin face grew still and his voice quiet, “Just tell me the truth - did you sleep with him?”

Myungjun’s heart was being ripped apart, the pain so intense he thought he might not survive. He knew telling the truth would be a suicide. The last night with Yukwon had been meaningless; he knew that. If anything, it had shown him that he moved on. A lie would make sense now; there was absolutely no need for Bin to know it had happened.

But he couldn’t face it, he couldn’t lie again. He was tired of his own lies, of constant running away from them, perpetually in fear of being caught up in the web he spun for himself.

He simply couldn’t do it.

“I did. Once,” his voice was so quiet, he hoped Bin might not even hear it.

_Please, don’t look at me like that. Please._

The beautiful face in front of him didn’t move. Bin’s look didn’t betray any of his emotions, his features frozen in a flat, expressionless mask. 

After what seemed like eternity, tears started rolling down Bin’s cheeks, yet his face remained perfectly impassive.

“Goodbye, Myungjun.”

…………….

_Myungjun sits alone on the grass verge, ignoring the whispering behind his back, the pitying looks of the bystanders who have just witnessed his dignity, his love, his world falling apart._

_The bartender runs out and hands him Bin’s jacket, “Your boyfriend left this here.” There is kindness in his voice, “I hope you two work it out.”_

_Myungjun leaves without a word, hands clutching the denim that smells like Bin._

_Goodbye Myungjun._

_The words linger in the air long after Bin has gone._

…………….

He rang Bin probably hundred times, all in vain. The phone went straight to voicemail and Myungjun knew leaving any message right now would do no good.

……………

“I messed up, Jinjin, I messed up!” He was curled up on his bed, sobbing into his phone.

“Hey dude, calm down. Do you need me to come and hide a body or something?”

He half-snorted with laughter and wiped his tears. _I love you, bro._

“Thanks but no, you idiot. Nothing like that. It’s Bin.” Fresh tears started rolling down his cheeks. “He hates me, Jinjin. I fucked up so badly.”

”Come on, Junnie, it can’t be that bad,” Jinwoo’s voice and his childhood nickname were a balm to his bruised soul. “Tell me what happened.”

And so he did.

“Ok, it IS that bad, dude,” Jinwoo wasn’t one to sugar coat things. “I think you truly fucked up."

……………

After a week of sleepless nights and hazy days, functioning like an automaton – go to work, come back home, crawl into bed, cry, repeat – and refusing engage in any conversation, Jinwoo grew worried. Myungjun could tell by the growing desperation of Jinwoo’s texts but felt too exhausted to answer. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. 

On Friday night, just as he was wrapping up a good cry, he heard the doorbell. Dragging his feet, barely able to move, he approached the intercom.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Jinwoo. Let me in,” the familiar voice of his best friend sounded relieved.

Myungjun leaned his head against the door and pressed the button.

Jinwoo is here. Everything will be fine.

A minute later, hearing a loud knock, he swung the door open. Jinwoo stood in front of him, his eyes worried. Behind him, a hesitant smile on his face, was Dongmin.

…………..

“Why did you bring him with you?” Myungjun whispered furiously, cornering Jinwoo in the kitchen while Dongmin excused himself to go to the bathroom.

“Because we wanted to help. You shouldn’t be alone right now and Dongmin is not going to be any trouble.”

“I know he is not. It’s just… I barely know him!”

“Calm down, Junnie. He won’t be in the way. He just has this… I don’t know, calming presence; you’ll see. I thought you could use that right now.”

In the end, Myungjun had to admit Dongmin was a godsend. While Jinwoo listened to him the whole evening and supplied tissues, ice cream, beer, soju and more tissues (in that particular order), Dongmin hung back unobtrusively and cooked a meal for them, even brought it into the living room and served it on the coffee table when it became clear that Myungjun was in no state to leave the sofa. The dinner was simple, rice noodles with prawns and some fried vegetables, but it was delicious and Myungjun was grateful. After good couple of hours of talking, crying and generally letting the floodgates open for all his misery to come out, he felt hungry and exhausted. He gladly accepted the bowl and Dongmin’s suggestion to wrap it up for the night after the meal.

He didn’t have any guest room but they both reassured him that the old sofa in the living room that doubled as a pull-out bed was just fine.

“Don’t worry about us, ok?” Jinwoo patted him on his back. “I know my way around here,” he smiled.

Myungjun picked up the bowls to bring them back to the kitchen and told himself to relax. After all, Jinwoo had spent many nights here in the past and was able to get the sofabed ready faster than Myungjun himself.

Busying himself in the kitchen, he listened to their murmured conversation and the sounds of them getting ready for bed.

“Oh crap, my phone is dying. Do you know if we packed the charger?” Jinwoo opened the bag and peered inside, looking a little lost.

“Let me,” Dongmin gently pushed him aside and started rummaging through the contents. “I know we did.” 

After couple of skilful delves into the side pockets he pulled out the charger and handed it over to Jinwoo.

“Thanks, babe. Can you take out my PJs as well?”

“Sure,” Dongmin rummaged some more and threw a bundle of fabric over his shoulder without looking up, Jinwoo catching it mid-air with a well-practised ease of someone who has done it many times before. He bent down to kiss the top of Dongmin’s head and made his way to the bathroom, the bag with toiletries clutched under his arm.

From the kitchen door, Myungjun watched the exchange, their moves like a beautifully choreographed dance for two, perfectly in harmony with each other, the synchronisation borne out of love, trust and time spent together. He realised with a painful sting that Jinwoo moved on with his life. His best friend was one year younger than him but suddenly seemed mature, grown up, at peace with the world.

He watched Dongmin zipping up the bag, his movements calm and unhurried, and felt a rush of sudden affection towards this man who made Jinwoo happy.

“Thank you for coming today, Dongmin,” the words came out in a rush, perhaps a little gushier than he intended.

Dongmin looked up, blinking in surprise, his beautiful face earnest and a little surprised, “You sure? I told Jinjin I didn’t want to be in the way… but he insisted on me coming too.”

“No, I’m glad you did. I feel better now that I’m not alone. Sorry for being such a mess though. When you come next time, we will go out, do something exciting - and I promise to be in a better mood.” 

For a moment he forgot about his broken heart and felt a twinge of excitement about the days to come.

But when he tiptoed to the bathroom several hours later, trying not to wake anybody, and saw Jinwoo curled up next to Dongmin, head resting on his boyfriend’s stomach while Dongmin’s arm was cradling his shoulders, the sight made him feel truly and utterly forlorn. Something in the way they slept told him they did this every night now, that theirs was not a brand new love anymore but was growing into something deeper, and his heart grew heavy with loneliness. 

He crept back to bed and tried not to think of Bin, while crying himself to sleep.

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

“Did you try to call him?”

All three of them were in the kitchen, aroma of their first morning coffee filling the space. Jinwoo was preparing breakfast while Dongmin was sitting opposite Myungjun, hands folded on the table, listening quietly. Myungjun was grateful for the calm that radiated off him. It helped him to clear his thoughts, which he needed badly. The inside of his head was a mess.

“I did try,” he sighed heavily. “It either goes straight to voicemail or Minhyuk picks up. He scares me a little. I mean, he is perfectly polite but he acts as if he was made out of stone. What can I do for you, no, Mr. Moon is currently not available, would you like to leave a message for him? That guy is as cold as an icicle, nothing moves him. No wonder Bin calls him The Rock.”

“I think Bin needs more time,” Dongmin’s voice was thoughtful. “Wait a little, then write to him, instead of calling.”

Myungjun reddened and fell like an idiot. “I don’t have his private e-mail address - or his private phone number, come to think of it. I only ever had the one for the studio because he said he always used that one. And he did. Maybe that’s his only one, I don’t know, but there is no way I’m texting him, only for Minhyuk to read it right now. And I’m not writing an e-mail to the studio where anyone can open it and read it.”

He buried his head in his hands, “Maybe he could see through me from the beginning and never gave me his real number. Maybe he could feel what an awful person I was.”

Dongmin regarded him with worry, “This is not going to help you, you know that? And I meant to write him a letter, the old-fashioned way. On paper. You know the address, his name and he probably doesn’t recognise your handwriting, so he will open it.”

Myungjun lifted his head, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “I haven’t thought of that,” he mused, secretly very pleased that Jinwoo decided to bring Dongmin along.

The ringing of his phone interrupted the silence. He looked at the caller ID and immediately his hands started shaking, “It’s Bin.”

Jinwoo whirled around from where he was frying eggs in a pan, “Oh my God, he wants to talk to you!”

For some reason Dongmin’s face remained more cautious but Myungjun didn’t care.

“I just,” he gestured vaguely to the bedroom, with both Jinwoo and Dongmin waving their hands furiously – go, go – and Myungjun disappeared in his bedroom. The door made a soft click as he shut it quietly behind him.

A minute later he emerged, face pale and hands clutching the phone. The sound of his slippers dragging heavily across the wooden floor was the only sound piercing through the silence so thick, one could cut if with a butter knife. Jinwoo’s eyes were huge but Myungjun could see he understood. He and Jinwoo didn’t need many words.

“He called to tell me that fucking Yukwon showed up at his studio and asked him to leave me bloody alone. And that he was blocking my number from now on.” Myungjun sank into his favourite chair, deflating like a punctured tyre.

“Yukwon is a complete twat!” Jinwoo burned with righteous indignation. “How could he do that?"

“That’s it, I'm going to officially kill him!” Myungjun slammed the table with both hands, the anger tinting his vision red. The room fell quiet.

Dongmin cleared his throat a little awkwardly, “I’m sorry, Myungjun, but I don’t think it fair to blame all of what happened on Yukwon.”

“What?” Myungjun and Jinwoo cried in unison and Dongmin blushed a little but stood his ground.

“I don't want to defend what he did that night, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but... you can't really blame Yukwon for how he acted,” Dongmin’s voice was calm, measured, as if he was thinking about every word he was going to say. Knowing him, he probably was, thought Myungjun grumpily. It stung that Dongmin was going to side with Yukwon, for whatever reason.

“Why?” The anger was slowly swelling in him, making his voice tremble.

_If this was Jinwoo talking, I would probably slap him right now._

Dongmin gulped, clearly terrified a little of what he might be unleashing, but carried on, “What I mean is, he didn’t know you and Bin were serious; I don’t think he meant to hurt you. The question is, what happened? Why did he get angry?” Dongmin wasn’t looking at him, his eyes were fixed at a spot somewhere next to the bottle of soy sauce on the table but Myungjun could see his brain was in overdrive, trying to work things out.

_He is trying to help, nothing else. Don’t get mad at him._

“Well, let’s say Bin wasn’t Bin that night. If Yukwon saw you kissing somebody,” there was the slightest hesitation in Dongmin’s voice, as if he was contemplating how to phrase his next words, “somebody meaningless, what would be different?”

“What do you mean? Yukwon never really butted in before, he never used to be jealous. It was like an unspoken agreement. We would hook up with whomever we wanted, it was never an issue.’

Myungjun didn’t mention the fact that the ‘agreement’ only existed because it was the only way to hold onto Yukwon at all. Had he played the possessive card with him, just once, Yukwon would have walked away without a second glance.

_No need to mention in front of Dongmin that I have no dignity, no self-respect._

“So why did he threw a hissy fit now, what has changed?” Dongmin furrowed his brows, his analytical brain clearly in his element.

Myungjun sighed. He didn’t need Dongmin to work out what happened that night and why it happened. He was there. He knew.

“I know why,” his own words felt heavy, his whole body was tired and sleep-deprived, the futility of it all hitting him hard.

“He actually told me.”

Dongmin raised his gaze, an unspoken question in his eyes.

“He complained, said I didn’t call him at all after we… after the last time we…” he trailed off miserably, leaving the words hanging.

“And you didn’t call? At all?”

“I didn’t.” Myungjun felt like he was swimming against the tide, every word, every movement was an effort. “I knew it was over after that night we were… together for the last time. I know I was over him. After all those years I was finally over him.”

“Shame HE had no clue about you ditching him then,” the sudden hint of sarcasm in Dongmin’s voice was a subtle one but it was definitely there.

Myungjun inhaled sharply, a stingy retort at the ready, but Dongmin merely cocked his head and smiled a little sadly, “Look, he was clearly used to you being around, keeping in touch and, in his world, this might have been as far as he ever got to a relationship. And then you stopped. And he had no idea why. I know you weren’t exclusive but maybe, just maybe, he considered what you two had as something special, something _more_. Maybe you didn’t see it that way but it looks to me that for him, sex wasn’t the most important thing in a relationship. He probably valued your attention or, I don’t know, your time together much higher. Perhaps he didn’t even realised himself - until he lost what he had with you.”

Dongmin’s eyes grew gentle but the sadness was still there, “I know you are upset about hurting Bin but can you see you hurt Yukwon too? By not telling him about how you felt – or rather how you didn’t feel anymore?”

Myungjun groaned and leaned his head against the wood of the table.

_Great. Just fucking great._

He could see Dongmin had a point but he felt angry. After all these years of Yukwon playing with his feelings, after having his heart ripped apart, bleeding, after being lonely for so long – now he had to be thinking about closure. A closure of something that never really existed in the first place.

_Marvellous. Bloody marvellous._

Tears started dripping down his nose onto the table surface. Angry tears.

“He deserves to know, Myungjun,’ Dongmin’s voice was calm, but firm. "Bin too. He needs to know you sorted out the mess in your life before you try to patch things up with him. I don’t think he would like any more… visitors.”

“Dongmin…” Jinwoo turned away from the hob, his voice cautioning, and stepped behind Myungjun. His hand started rubbing his best friend’s shoulders gently, “lay off him, babe; he has had enough.”

“No, he is right,” Myungjun sniffed and lifted his head, his eyes meeting Dongmin’s. “Thank you.”

_I am glad he came with Jinjin._

As much as he loved Jinwoo, had he come alone, his best friend would have comforted him, cried with him and cared more about his hurt feelings first, rather than kicking his ass straightaway to sort things out. They would have probably arrived at the same conclusion - but it would have taken them much longer. Dongmin was like a therapist on fast track for free, a near stranger who was not judging, who was listening intently and bluntly telling the truth. After a week of crying into the pillow every night, Myungjun felt a relief when listening to Dongmin’s slow, measured words, voicing things that were painfully nagging at the back of his mind anyway.

He wiped the tears with the back of his hand, “I will talk to Yukwon.”

 

……………

 

Yukwon slid into the chair opposite him, his glance meeting Myungjun’s, the familiar smirk on his face giving the whole scene an eerie sense of _dejà vu_ , “Hi.”

“Hi,” Myungjun eyed the man in front of him with a mixture of nerves and nostalgia.

Yukwon was as breathtaking as ever. He changed his hairstyle and wore his hair in braids now, making his striking features stand out even more than before. Myungjun was drinking in his beauty but where before he would have been filled with desperate, passionate longing, today his heart was filled with sad, nostalgic memories of the times past. 

The restaurant he chose was busy, filled with homely sounds of laughter, people chatting, slurping noodles, the waiters running around at a top speed. It was their busiest hour.

Myungjun picked the time and place on purpose; he was dreading the silence between them, the pain that would inevitably follow after him saying what needed to be said, the hurt he would see in Yukwon’s eyes. His ex-boyfriend might have acted like a selfish brat in the past but that didn’t mean he had no feelings.

“Thank you for coming,” his throat felt constricted and the waiter who appeared at the table to take their order was a welcome distraction, buying him couple of minutes of time before he had to wipe the radiant smile off Yukwon’s beautiful face.

He watched him chatting to the waiter, the trademark Yukwon charm turned on to its full potential. The young boy in an oversized apron was blushing and stammering by the time he was finished with their order.

Left alone again, Myungjun knew he couldn’t drag things out any longer.

“Thanks for coming,” he started again, feeling completely idiotic and a little angry at himself, angry that he was finding it difficult to say to the man opposite him, a stranger in a way, yet so familiar, that he didn’t mean anything to him anymore.

“So,” Yukwon smiled at him, the cheeky grin Myungjun was so well accustomed to spreading across his face, “did you miss me?”

_Here we go again._

The short sentence brought Myungjun back to reality. The cockiness, the absolute certainty with which Yukwon assumed that everything was back to normal, back to the old _status quo_ , felt like ice-cold water in his face.

“No, Yukwon,” the words tumbled out of him, the sudden rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins making him lightheaded, “that’s not why I am here.”

“Oh.” The surprise in Yukwon’s face was palpable but he recovered quickly. “And here I am, risking unemployment by leaving work early just because of you, almost breaking my legs to get here on time. You’re breaking my heart, MJ.”

“Risking unemployment? What have I missed?” Against his better judgement, Myungjun felt himself being sucked into a conversation, putting off what he knew was coming.

“Well, I have a job now.” 

“Wow. How long since you started? Two weeks?” The moment his words were out, Myungjun felt ashamed. 

_Why am I mean to him? Maybe he is trying to get his life back on track and I am belittling him. What a great start._

Surprisingly, Yukwon ignored the jibe, a shy smile crossing his face, “It’s been almost three months.”

“That’s great, Yukwon,” for a moment, the animosity Myungjun felt just a second ago evaporated. “What do you do?”

“I sell fishing rods.”

“What?” Myungjun almost felt from the proverbial chair but tried to pull himself together, albeit not very successfully, he suspected.

“Well, any fishing equipment really,” Yukwon shrugged his shoulders and the tiniest blush tinted his cheeks.

The young waiter who took their order came back with two tall glasses of beer. Yukwon’s fingers wrapped gratefully around the glass, gently wiping away the tiny droplets of condensation running down its side. He took a gulp and set the glass down, staring into the white foam.

Myungjun felt a surge of pity. Here, sitting in front of him, was a man who was gifted with so much talent that other artists paled with envy when confronted with his work, and yet, here he was, selling bloody fishing rods.

“Why fishing rods out of all things?” he did his best to keep his voice and face smooth.

Yukwon’s face lit up with a smile. Unlike his standard smirk, the sincerity in his face at that moment was incredibly sweet and Myungjun’s heart contracted painfully. This was why he had fallen in love with him years ago. For moments like this.

_And now I don’t feel anything anymore._

Not noticing Myungjun’s inner turmoil, Yukwon continued, a dreamy look on his face, “I used to go fishing a lot with my dad when I was younger. We still go sometimes, when I visit. And about three months ago, I went to this little shop I know to buy him a new rod for his birthday. I had sold some work and had a little bit of money and dad had not been doing great, healthwise, so I wanted to cheer him up. While buying the rod, I got talking with the shopkeeper, an elderly gentleman, very nice, and really enjoyed it; we ended up chatting for almost two hours. In the end he offered me a job; it turned out his assistant left two weeks ago. Apparently the old man never knew somebody who was so passionate about fishing,” Yukwon shrugged his shoulders, looking a little embarrassed.

Eyeing his companion, Myungjun face widened in a smile. This was Yukwon who was more mature, less reckless, finally trying to act like an adult. It felt good seeing him growing up. Myungjun’s mood lifted; suddenly he wasn’t in a hurry to say what he had prepared and leave as quickly as possible. Suddenly, he wanted to know whether the man whom he used to love was happy.

“Do you like it?” he leaned closer, elbows on the table, taking a sip from his beer. “Your new job?”

Yukwon’s face betrayed him. Although he was trying to sound nonchalant, as if he didn’t care, Myungjun could see he was pleased with himself.

“Yeah, it’s alright. My boss is nice, I get to chat to old fishermen, the hours are ok and when the shop is quiet, I sketch. I even persuaded some of the customers to sit for me. There is something exciting about an old face; the wrinkles and lines tell a story, it’s fascinating, MJ.”

Myungjun much preferred Yukwon’s striking face to that of an ancient fisherman but he didn’t argue. To see Yukwon happy was enough.

“I'm becoming an expert at drawing fish though,” Yukwon’s sudden burst of laughter echoed through the restaurant. “I started drawing them when I was really bored and the owner loved them. He decorated the shops with the sketches and put some in the window for display. People got curious and since then, I sold quite a few. Mr Lee, the owner, doesn’t even take a cut when a picture gets sold; he says he is not interested in exploiting me. Apparently the sales have been rising since I started working there. So it’s a win-win situation for everyone.”

Myungjun’s heart felt warm and fuzzy. “Are you happy, Yukwon?” he smiled into the pleased eyes in front of him.

As if by a flick of a magic wand, Yukwon’s face changed. He leaned forward and took Myungjun’s hand, “Almost, sunshine,” he said slowly, his look intense all of a sudden, “I’m almost happy.”

Myungjun froze.

_Oh no. No, no, no, no, no._

“I miss you, sunshine,” Yukwon’s fingers were squeezing his. “I never thought I would say this aloud but I miss you. These past months I thought about us a lot. I used to be a real bastard to you, never treated you right, but you were always there for me. I keep thinking, we should give it another try, for real this time.”

Life is an odd thing, Myungjun thought, head floating, feeling strangely detached from his own body. Like an amoeba, shifting and unstable, it never goes in the direction one tries to push it. It always ends up somewhere else.

He tried to calm his breathing, grappling with an onset of panic. This was not going well. This was to be much more difficult than he thought it would be.

But an image of Bin, tears streaming down his face, reminded him why he was here.

“I can’t, Yukwon,” he said helplessly, “I don’t love you anymore. You see, I did, before. For years I loved you, loved you desperately, hoping we could be together.”

“You should have told me.” Yukwon grabbed his other hand, crushing his fingers, eyes pleading.

Myungjun sighed and pulled his hands back. He rubbed his forehead, feeling old, exhausted and at the end of his wits, “The thing is, Yukwon, I did. Do you remember, two years ago, when we were together? I told you I loved you. Once. You never said it back and then, shortly afterwards, you broke up with me. Said you didn’t think you were built for exclusivity, for serious relationships.” Even after two years, the memory stung and Myungjun found himself fighting tears.

“After that, I still nurtured some sort of hope because, well, because I loved you. But I don’t anymore. I’m done.”

The effect of his words was devastating. Yukwon fell apart in front of his eyes and, despite all that happened, despite all the heartbreak this man had caused to him in the past, Myungjun’s heart went out for him. “I’m sorry, Yukwon.”

“It’s because of him, isn’t it?” Yukwon whispered, the hurt in his voice sending shots of pain through Myungjun. “The guy I saw you with? The blond baby boy?”

“Yukwon, please, don’t do this,” Myungjun pleaded.

“No,” Yukwon shook his head, staring at the table, not meeting his eyes, “just tell me, please. Do you love him?”

“I do.” There was no need to say anything else. The simplicity of the statement gave an incredible power to his words and Myungjun could see Yukwon shrinking in his chair.

“Well, I hope you are happy together.” There was not a hint of sarcasm in Yukwon’s voice, only infinite sadness.

“We are not together.”

“Oh.”

“He left me after we met you… that night. But I’m not going to give up. I’m going to win him back. And that’s why I’m here today. Leave us alone, Yukwon. Please.” He sighed, feeling weary to the bone. “You and I, we had our chance and we completely messed it up. There is nothing we can do about it now, it’s in the past. Let it go, Yukwon.”

The scraping of the heavy wooden chair almost made him jump. Yukwon stood up, eyes red. “I need to go. You don’t need to worry about me anymore; I will leave you both alone. Good luck.”

”Yukwon, don’t go yet,” Myungjun stammered, desperate not to end things, scared of the finality of the moment, “at least wait for the food.”

_Why do break-ups need to be messy and painful?_

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Yukwon turned to leave.

Myungjun felt absolutely rotten. For years his existence was as light as the wings of a butterfly, him fluttering from place to place, sampling beautiful flowers, careless and free. Sure, he had a secret corner in his heart where he would shed lonely and heart-broken tears sometimes but he prided himself for not deceiving anybody, not promising anything that wasn’t true, for being upfront with everyone.

However, it seemed true love was much more painful than a simple pursuit of pleasure.

_I’ve messed up absolutely everything._

“Yukwon, please, can we at least stay friends?”

“No, I don’t think we can. I can't be _just_ friends with you after all that happened.” Yukwon’s eyes were not meeting his. “I’d better be going. See you around, MJ.”

He was gone. Myungjun buried his head in the crooks of his elbows, ignoring the stares of other guests. After a while, he stood up, threw a bunch of banknotes on the table and left.

……………

“I talked to him, Jinjin.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Jinwoo’s voice sounded relieved. Myungjun understood. When both Jinwoo and Dongmin had still been around, close to him, it had been easy to pick up the phone, text Yukwon and arrange a meeting. The moment his friends left, he felt his resolve falter and was scared he would cancel at the very last moment. 

Jinwoo’s train of thought must have been the same because the relief in his voice was palpable.

“How did it go?”

“Uh, don’t ask,” he couldn’t bring himself to expand. The wound was still fresh. “He didn’t take it particularly well but it’s done now.”

“How do you feel?” He could hear the concern in Jinwoo’s words.

“Shitty at first, sort of lighter now.”

“Good. Any news from Bin?” Jinwoo clearly wasn’t in the mood to beat around the bush. 

“Well, I wrote him a letter, like Dongmin suggested.”

“And?”

“He returned it opened, without a word. Nothing.” Myungjun felt tears stinging in his eyes. He had felt so hopeful when he returned home after he talked to Yukwon that he sat down straightaway and wrote a long letter, posting it the very next morning.

All in vain.

“Hey, Junnie, come on, bro. It’s not over yet. You’ll come up with something,” Jinwoo’s soothing tone was a balm for Myungjun’s bruised soul.

He smiled through the tears, “I think I have an idea. Just tell me if it’s completely bonkers.”

“Shoot, bro, I'm all ears.”

……………

Waiting in the small foyer of Bin’s dance studio, Myungjun could feel his palms sweating. He has purposefully chosen a corner where he couldn’t be seen by Bin who right now was dismissing the class, chatting to the parents, joking and generally spreading a joyful vibe. The studio was decorated with pumpkins and plastic toy spiders and the sign on the wall read “Halloween Week”. Most of the children were wearing Halloween costumes, some cute, some ridiculous, couple of them genuinely scary.

Gradually, the place emptied and Bin returned to the practice room, his posture changing the moment last couple of parents disappeared behind the door leading into the corridor. His shoulders slumped, the excitable demeanour was gone. He looked tired and defeated and Myungjun’s heart ached.

Hesitantly, he knocked on the glass door and entered the practice room.

Bin looked up from where he was sitting on the floor, scrolling through his phone, and his face froze. He scrambled to his feet, eyes not leaving Myungjun, his piercing look intensified by a heavy eyeliner of what was clearly a Halloween make-up. 

_He looks like a sexy vampire._

“What are you doing here?” Bin’s tone was not friendly and Myungjun’s knees began to shake from nerves.

“I’m… I’m… I’ve booked the next lesson.” Beads of sweat began to form on his forehead.

“I don’t think so,” Bin regarded him coolly. “The next one-to-one salsa class I have is with,” he looked through his phone, “Park Minho.”

“That’s… that’s me. I booked it under a different name.”

“You must be kidding me.” The hostility in Bin’s eyes made Myungjun’s stomach twist with panic.

For a moment they stood completely still, then Bin turned and walked to one of the windows. His hands gripped the windowsill; Myungjun could see his knuckles turning white.

Myungjun came closer, “I want to say sorry for what I did to you.”

Bin didn’t move, didn’t respond and carried on gazing out of the window instead, his back turned.

“Please say something.” Myungjun touched his shoulder hesitantly, only to watch the other shrugging it off coldly and crossing the room to the sound system in the corner, where he starting scrolling through a playlist on his phone until the screech of a saxophone, like an angry cat on a roof at midnight, filled the air around them; the sound of a hot Havana night pouring out of the speakers. 

“Let’s get started then.” Bin put the phone down. The heavy undertone in his voice suddenly made Myungjun shiver.

“You are not a complete beginner, I saw you dancing,“ Bin came closer, his face a closed off mask with no emotions whatsoever, “so we will not bother with the basic steps for too long.” They stood only inches apart now and Myungjun could see the tiny thuds of Bin’s heartbeat through the black t-shirt he was wearing.

“Look up,” Bin’s fingers yanked up Myungjun’s chin, “you don’t watch your feet while dancing. You look into your partner’s eyes.” 

Tears started blurring his vision, “Binnie, please…”

Something dark, akin to hatred, flashed in Bin’s eyes. “You wanted a lesson, you will get one.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

“You wanted a lesson, you will get one.”

Despite the music blaring from the speakers, the stony silence between him and Bin was crushing Myungjun’s chest.

He did his best to gulp down the tears that were threatening to spill down his cheeks but didn’t move. The Bin standing in front of him was another person, someone whom he didn’t know at all and who scared him a little.

He came to the studio hoping to talk but he couldn’t see it happening anymore, not with Bin watching him like he was a stranger.

He flinched a little at the sudden sound of Bin’s voice.

“Dancing is like fucking, Myungjun,” Bin’s words were knives and right now, he was slicing through Myungjun’s heart. “Did you know that? The chemistry must be right.”

Bin’s eyes were on him, unmoving, his fingers still gripping his chin. “I should know. I used to fuck someone who did nothing but lied to me but the chemistry we had, oh, the chemistry was _good_. You should be alright then.”

Myungjun’s face reddened in anger. He came here to apologize; he knew what he did had been wrong but he didn’t deserve this.

_Ok. If you want to play it this way..._

He moved closer, so close he was barely an inch from Bin’s chest, and looked up defiantly, cheeks flushed. “Fine. I’m ready.”

Bin’s fingers dropped and for a fleeting moment his composure seemed to crumble. Myungjun’s heart leaped with hope but, in a flash, Bin’s mask was back on. “Do you know the basic steps?”

“I…I think so…”

“Fine.” Bin took his hand and Myungjun felt a shock, like electric current, surging through his body.

“Look up,” Bin’s voice was icy but Myungjun felt hot all over as Bin’s eyes were not leaving his for a moment.

“Follow my lead… On the count of four.”

Myungjun knew the bare basics of salsa and found it easy to follow. Almost too easy. It gave him way too much time to focus on how it felt to have Bin’s fingers wrapped around his hand, to have Bin’s dark look trained on him, to see his body moving to the music, every move fluid, smooth and sexy.

This was not getting them anywhere. They needed to speak to each other; he wanted to apologise; he needed Bin to listen. When booking the lesson, he never, not even for a second, thought they would actually dance. 

Panicky, desperate thoughts were whirring in his head but gradually, repeating the same steps over and over again, he began to relax.

Maybe it was ok.

Bin was right there in front of him, his hand squeezing Myungjun’s fingers, their eyes locked.

_Maybe it’s ok not to think too much._

_Maybe, right now, this is ok._

Myungjun decided to forget about Bin’s anger for now, to forget about their heartbreak, about what could have been and would now never be. 

He decided to let go and dance.

Following Bin’s lead, feeling his palms sliding down his back, looking into his eyes, it was almost as if nothing has ever happened.

_Is it just me, or is Bin looking less angry?_

“Ok.” The music has not stopped but Bin paused, pulling back. “You’re doing well. Let’s try a new turn. Give me your hand. Your other hand,” he supplied a little impatiently, as Myungjun looked rather confused at his own hand, already resting in Bin’s palm.

Holding hands, they looked at each other. The silence, despite the music surrounding them, was suddenly charged with something heavy, pregnant with anticipation.

Bin cleared his throat, breaking the spell. “Right. You will start as usual, with your right foot backwards but then take a step forward, almost across, as if you were trying to get over to my right.“

Listening, trying his best to comprehend, Myungjun couldn't see where this was going. 

Bin must have sensed his confusion because he pirouetted out of his personal space to stand next to him, morphing into his doppelgänger, only with much smoother moves, guiding him through the combination of steps, towards the imaginary Bin who wasn’t there.

“Ok,” he turned back to face Myungjun again and extended both of his hands. “You might not know what you’re doing yet,” a slight smirk flashed across his face, “but you got the steps. Give it a go.”

Myungjun took Bin’s hands and did as he was told, repeating the short sequence when, without warning, Bin’s arm spun him around and he landed with his back pressed against Bin’s chest, Bin’s arms crossed in front of him, their fingers intertwined.

_Oh my god._

The feel of being enveloped in Bin’s arms, their closeness, nearly made Myungjun’s knees buckle.

To his bitter disappointment, Bin let go of him almost immediately and Myungjun felt himself being turned again, Bin’s palm pausing on his waist momentarily, before dragging his fingers across Myungjun’s lower back as he was being spun around, a butterfly touch sending shivers down his spine.

_Jesus._

“Good.” There was the tiniest hint of a smile in Bin’s voice. “Again.”

His heart thumping wildly, Myungjun held out his hand for Bin to take.

_……………_

_They dance. It’s their second time dancing together. They dance until sweat glistens on Bin’s face and runs down Myungjun’s spine. The space is theirs, nothing else matters, everything else just a blurry background, becoming inconsequential, non-existent._

__

_Occasionally, Bin pauses for a second, correcting his hold, or to comment on Myungjun’s footwork, but for most of the time they move in silence._

__

_With every turn, Myungjun feels Bin’s arms around him, Bin’s fingers sliding across his back, burning his skin._

__

_With every step he finds himself drowning in Bin’s eyes, so far still, yet getting closer with every beat._

__

_Myungjun is searching for a smile in Bin’s gaze. There is none, not yet, but there is a maybe in his look, Myungjun can feel it._

__

_When Bin slips out of the hold and stretches out his right arm, his cue to the new move, it sends a shot of thrill down Myungjun’s spine, a mixture of absurd pride at the slickness with which he is able to mirror Bin’s steps by now and how turned on he is at the thought of Bin’s body touching his own which he knows will follow a split of a second later._

__

_Bin must feel it too because every time they repeat the sequence his hands on Myungjun’s waist linger a little bit longer, his hips press harder, almost to the point of making them miss the beat._

__

_Until they miss it._

__

_Myungjun spins with ease under Bin’s arm, his back colliding with Bin’s chest but, instead of releasing his left hand to carry on, Bin stops._

__

_“Binnie.” Myungjun leans back, against the warmth that’s Bin, and feels the other’s chest rising and falling, the sharp intakes of breath betraying the crumbling of the iron facade that Bin has imposed on himself the moment they started to dance._

__

_Bin breathes against the nape of Myungjun’s neck, the touch of his lips a stroke of a feather, hardly there. “I missed you.”_

__

_Myungjun turns around with a lightning speed. Bin’s eyes are red, welling up with tears and Myungjun’s heart hurts just by looking at him._

__

_“Binnie.” He doesn’t know what to say, there are no words to express what he feels, so he doesn’t say anything at all._

__

_A kiss can tell what thousand words cannot._

__

_Their lips meet, his own hungrily, Bin’s with hesitation which he tries to ignore. He can’t hold back anymore, it’s too much; like hot lava destroying everything in its wake, he stops caring about what Bin thinks; this is what he wants, what he needs, what he has to have. Now._

__

_Bin whimpers against his mouth, a small, vulnerable sound, but Myungjun doesn’t care. He presses against the body he missed so much, clutching at Bin’s shirt, inhaling the smell, the taste, the essence of him, that was absent from his life for so long._

__

_He wants to know, he needs to know whether Bin feels the same. He searches for answers in the taste of their kiss but gradually it dawns on him that Bin’s hesitation was not just a product of his imagination._

__

__

_He panics. Surely Bin wants this as much as he does?_

__

_Right?_

__

_But Bin is not returning the kiss as he always imagined he would, back in those long, lonely nights when he dreamt of them finally seeing each other again, when he was inventing thousands of scenarios in his head about how they would meet, building castles on the cloud about them being reunited._

__

_In his dreams Bin was kissing him back passionately but the real Bin stalls and pulls back._

__

_“Please.”_

__

_Myungjun can hardly recognise the shaky whisper that is Bin’s voice._

__

_“Myungjun, don’t…”_

__

_Bin stumbles backwards, away from him, and there it is, an elaborate display of pumpkins and spiders, a bulky orange pyramid built on the floor between the two large windows of the studio._

__

_One misstep._

__

_With the pumpkins rolling everywhere across the floor like angry orange suns, they both freeze and the moment, the fleeting glimmer of hope, is gone._

____

……………

____

Myungjun always wondered what would have happened had they not sent the pumpkins flying across the studio floor.

____

In the futile game of ‘what ifs,’ he played out countless versions of what could have happened, instead of what did. 

____

_I guess I will never know._

____

……………..

____

Staring at the scattered pumpkins, Bin’s chin started to wobble and he let go of Myungjun abruptly.

____

“I can't do this!”

____

He yanked Myungjun’s arms off him, “Leave me alone. Go!” His voice echoed through the room but his red eyes betrayed the pain underneath the anger.

____

“Binnie, don’t do this,” Myungjun heard the desperate plea in his own voice. “You want me back, the same way I want you. I felt it. Right now, a minute go, I felt it. You must have too.”

____

“Shut up, Myungjun!” Bin’s voice was so loud, it made Myungjun jump with fright. “Don’t tell me what I want because I don’t know what I want! I don’t know what I feel!”

____

Myungjun couldn’t think of anything to say and simply stared.

____

_Even half-confession is a confession._

____

Bin misinterpreted his silence. “You think I’m over-reacting?” His sarcastic sneer was quieter than his shouting but Myungjun found it hurt more.

____

“No, Binnie. I know how much I hurt you.”

____

Bin slumped against the wall, looking exhausted, “No, you don’t. You have no idea. You and Yukwon, you made me feel so cheap. It was so humiliating. After all that time when I hoped that we could be… Never mind. After Yukwon left I felt so dirty, it made me feel sick.”

____

“He was scared, Binnie. Scared that you would take me away from him. Not that he ever had me but you made him jealous.” Even he could feel how inadequate his explanation was, but it was all he had.

____

“I don’t care! I don’t care about bloody Yukwon’s bloody jealousy! He came in here like the place belonged to him, making fun of me, making fun of us, Myungjun, of us! And you know what? I don’t even know what I want right now. Half of the time I hate you, I really, really hate you! And half of the time I miss you so much I think I might die.”

____

Myungjun’s heart made a somersault in his chest, “I would never hurt you again, Binnie. I promise. Give us a chance.”

____

“He, too, said he would never hurt me, “ Bin’s voice sounded so hollow all of a sudden, Myungjun could feel the uneasy twist of his stomach.

____

“Who?” He didn’t need to ask; he might not know the details but the answer was obvious.

____

Bin slid down to the floor, curled up into himself, hugging his knees, “His name was Tim. He was half- Canadian, half-Korean. I met him the summer after I finished high school. He was beautiful.”

____

The vulnerability of his voice made Myungjun wanting to cry.

____

“I did have a girlfriend in my last year at high school; it was sort of expected. Doyeon was nice but I… I knew the moment we started dating it didn’t feel right. She broke up with me after we graduated and she left to study in Seoul. I played the heartbroken boyfriend but, secretly, I was relieved. Then I met Tim. It was Sooyun’s birthday party; we all went clubbing. Although we didn’t stay in touch after we graduated, she invited me to her birthday. I think she was hoping to take Doyeon’s place. But I met Tim that night and everything changed.”

____

Myungjun sank down onto the floor next to Bin, a desire to hug him and protect him from all evil in the world overwhelming.

____

“I loved him so much, Myungjun, so much.” Bin was staring ahead of him at the scattered pumpkins. “He was eleven years older than me; I thought he was the coolest, smartest person I have ever met. We spent the whole night talking and I fell in love right there and then.

____

“It was all lies, of course,” the bitterness in Bin’s voice suddenly made him sound much older, weary. “The way he said he didn’t like going out and preferred staying in and cosy evenings, the way he never picked up my calls straightaway but let it ring and would call me back, the fact I never saw his place and we always stayed in my studio, his long business trips, the way he didn’t want to meet my friends. It was all lies, Myungjun, but I believed him. I was hopelessly in love and he was my first; I didn’t know any better. He would come almost every night after Minhyuk left and I locked up for the night, he brought food, loads of it; we would eat together, drink some wine – God, he used to bring some expensive wine, I remember that – then I would fuck him until he could barely breathe. He loved it; he called me his love machine – and the idiot that I was, I felt like the king of the world every time he said it.”

____

Myungjun was hugging Bin’s curled up shape with his eyes; he didn’t dare to do more. 

____

“He never spent the night though,” Bin whispered, “always going on about how he needed to get up way too early to go to the bank because of the trading hours and how he didn’t want to wake me up. I felt so lonely every time he was leaving but I believed him without questioning. God, I was so stupid!”

____

Bin paused and Myungjun steeled himself for what was to come.

____

“Then one night he didn’t come. I rung him, I rung him so many times but he didn’t pick up. The next day his fiancé showed up; you know that part of the story. I broke up with him the moment she left; sent him a furious message, said I hated him and never wanted to see him again.”

____

“I’m so sorry, Binnie,”

____

“You know what the best part was?” Tears started dripping down his cheeks onto the parquet floor, with Bin making no attempt at wiping them. “I really hoped he would come back to me. But he never did. He sent one message, saying ‘I’m so sorry babe.’ No more. I wasn’t even worth an explanation.”

____

“Did you ever see him again?”

____

“Oh yeah,” Bin laugh sounded hollow. “Year and a half later, I saw him with his fiancé, no, wife by then, holding hands, shopping for baby stuff. She was pregnant. They didn’t see me.”

____

_Binnie, I’m so so sorry._

____

“I knew I did the right thing when I broke up with him but I was a total wreck after that. Minhyuk moved in with me. He told his parents everything – not the details, only that I had been through a bad break-up and needed help. Without him, I probably wouldn’t have showered once in those weeks, no, I wouldn’t have gotten out of bed at all. He woke me up every morning, kicked my ass – sometimes literally – until I went to brush my teeth and have a shower, walked with me to work – I had a day job in a book shop then – then went to school himself. In the afternoon he would come, sometimes with food, back at home he cooked for us, kicked my ass again to get me to the studio to teach my class; in the evening he sat next to me playing video games while I was in bed, staring at the wall.”

____

“It took me maybe three weeks to be able to get up in the morning without Minhyuk yelling at me. It took me months not to cry at night.”

____

Myungjun’s heart squeezed painfully.

____

“After him, I just… didn’t want to be with anyone. Until you came along and dropped your stupid bag on my head.”

____

Suddenly, Bin raised his head, eyes trained on Myungjun, “When Yookwon came that night, I swear I couldn’t decide whether to kill him, you or myself. It was as if I was reliving the same nightmare.”

____

“I’m so so sorry,” Myungjun’s voice was braking, “I’m so sorry I lied to you. I had been in love with Yookwon once – I knew he didn’t love me, or maybe just not nearly as much as I loved him but I had tried to make it work. It never did in the end, we were never meant to be. I shouldn’t have lied to you though – even if me and Yookwon weren’t together we still had something and it was my fault for not ending it before we… before…” his voice failed him. “I’m sorry, Binnie.”

____

He cleared his throat and tried to carry on. He owed it to Bin, he owed him the whole truth. “After we met, I couldn’t make up my mind whether I should call you or not. I liked you from the beginning but I knew my life was a mess – so I didn’t. Then I bumped into Yukwon – listen, this is going to hurt, “ he eyed Bin a little uncertainly.

____

“No, carry on.” A resigned, bone-weary shrug of Bin’s shoulders hurt him more than any accusations.

____

“We slept together and for the first time in my life I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. With hindsight, I shouldn’t have done that,” he hung his head, “but I was a coward, I didn’t want to be alone and… it was easier to carry on than to try and change my life. I was such a coward, Binnie.”

____

“Anyway, I met him two weeks ago. I told him everything, how I used to feel for years – and I told him I was over him now. I think it was a shock to him. In his own weird way, I think he loved me. But I don’t love him, Binnie, not anymore. I had tried, so hard, but I fell out of love at some point and I should have told him that before I had started anything with you.”

____

He took Bin’s hands into his, “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I came here today to tell you that. I came to apologise. It’s not enough, I know that, but I had enough of my own lies, of me hurting people, hurting you.”

____

He looked into Bin’s eyes, pleading, “Do you think you could forgive me one day?” 

____

“I don’t know, Myungjun,” Bin pulled his hands away, desperation written over his face. “I don’t know if I can trust you. How do I know that you won’t do it again? That when things get uncomfortable, you won’t try to find an easy way out, tell me something I like to hear, rather than the truth?”

____

He buried his face in his hands, “I can’t be with you. Not like this. Half of the time I think about you, I’m angry. I’m so angry I feel like I actually hate you.”

____

“Will you… Will you try to forgive me?”Panic gripped Myungjun; he was grasping at straws.

____

“I’ll try. No promises, but I’ll try.”

____

“Will you let me know when… if … if you forgive me, will you let me know?”

____

“I will.” Bin's shaky, hesitant smile made his heart soar.

Against all odds, he felt a surge of hope.

____

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

“Are you two going to be ok?" Myungsoon eyed him nervously, wrapping a scarf more tightly around her neck. She clearly wasn’t convinced.

Myungjun tried to give her his most reassuring smile, “Don’t worry, sis, we will have a great time, won’t we, pumpkin?” He turned to his nephew and winked.

Sanha next to him was jumping up and down, his breath forming puffy clouds of air. “You go, Mum, I will be fine. I’m not going to fall, I swear.”

Myungsoon eyed the ice rink teeming with people and sighed, “I’d better go, otherwise I’ll change my mind.”

“Go,” Myungjun gripped Sanha’s hand clad in a bright red mitten and smiled. "When you come back you’ll find us here, safe and sound. It’s not his first time ice-skating, after all.”

“But it’s the first time I’m leaving him here without me," his sister wrapped her coat tighter around herself and squared her shoulders. "Ok, I’m going. I’ll see you in an hour or so. Be careful, ok?”

“We will be, sis. Have a great time shopping. I bet you’ll find something nice.”

“Thank you, Myungjun,” his sister smiled at him gratefully. She was planning a romantic date with her husband at Christmas and was determined to find him a nice present. Since it was supposed to be a surprise and she wasn’t keen on online shopping, Myungjun volunteered to take care of Sahna on this bright Thursday afternoon while Myungsoon left work early, determined to find something special for Sungyong. 

“Bye Mum!” Sanha waved and tugged at Myungjun’s hand. “Let’s go, uncle!” He was dragging him towards the entrance and soon the joined the cheerful crowd making laps in the rink.

……………

Myungjun had to give it to his nephew; Sanha was a decent skater. The boy was even a little better than Myungjun himself, as the latter realised to his dismay. He didn’t mind too much though. He was pleased his nephew was enjoying himself and together they fell into an easy rhythm, circling the rink at a steady pace, without embarrassing themselves too much. Sanha’s promise of not falling was broken within the first ten minutes but he got up without much drama and carried on.

Myungjun watched the little boy’s rosy cheeks and felt something akin to happiness. The clear blue sky above them, the skaters’ bright outfits, the sound of skates slicing the ice – all of it filled him with an absurdly euphoric feeling he hasn’t felt for ages.

For six weeks and two days, to be precise.

Six weeks and two days since he walked out of the MoonRock Dance Studio, feeling Bin’s eyes on his back.

_I don’t know if I can trust you, Myungjun._

_Maybe one day I will._

The absurd feeling of hope that permeated his whole being after he left evaporated within a couple of days as it gradually became clear that Bin wouldn’t call.

After the first three days Myungjun forced himself not to jump every time when his phone beeped with a new message.

After the first couple of weeks he forced himself to stop checking it in the middle of the night. 

The hours blended into days, days into weeks. Myungjun buried himself in his latest project and tried not to think about Bin.

Gradually he forced himself to accept that there will be no call, no message, no reunion.

Life resumed its past rhythm, work and lone evenings at home. He tried to drag himself out every Saturday in order to keep his friends off his back but didn’t enjoy it at all. He could see Nana eyeing him with worry, not asking about Bin but clearly burning to do so; Jaewoo was trying desperately to set him up with random friends and acquaintances of his but he couldn’t help it; he didn’t want anybody, he wanted Bin.

But Bin wasn’t coming back.

He had been foolish to hope. There was no bitterness in his thoughts, just a sad realisation that this was it. He has done it again; he had a chance at happiness but ruined it again.

Life became shrouded in shades of monotony; every morning the same, every night vague, blurry, undistinguishable from the one before.

Up until now.

Today, with the sun shining brightly through the naked branches of tall alder trees surrounding the rink, the first powdery snow covering the ground like an exquisite icing on a freshly baked cake, he allowed himself to smile and cherish the moment.

Maybe life was not so bad after all.

And in that moment, smiling at Sanha and promising him a cup of hot chocolate if this was their last lap – there was only so much skating he could endure and his feet were killing him - sliding together towards the exit, holding onto the feeling of lightness; enjoying that happy moment, he had no idea that in the next second he would find himself staring at somebody whose eyes he longed to see and wished to forget at the same time for the last six weeks and two days.

Bin.

Dressed in thick black woollen turtleneck and black jeans, his skates slicing the ice at an alarming pace, he whizzed past them so fast Myungjun wasn’t sure he didn’t dream it all.

Forgetting Sanha completely, Myungjun spun around, nearly losing his balance, and stared.

_God, he is beautiful._

Next to him, Sanha tugged at his hand a little impatiently but Myungjun’s eyes were glued to the tall figure gliding through the space, weaving his way through the gaps between the others, lithe and powerful at the same time.

_He dyed his hair back to black. And he is so thin._

Myungjun’s chest tightened painfully. Bin was as breathtaking as ever, his broad shoulders, muscular legs and slim waist making Myungjun’s mouth water, but even from the distance he could see Bin lost weight. From the side he looked almost paper-thin and there were dark circles under his eyes.

_Am I the reason he looks like this?_

He watched Bin slowing down and being joined by another boy, smaller, with sharp features, his movements on ice even smoother than Bin’s, assured and elegant, as if he was born with skates on his feet.

Bin’s face brightened as he listened to the boy who was whispering something into his ear and smiling, a dimple in his left cheek transforming his striking face into a soft, puppy-like cuteness.

_Is he perhaps your new boyfriend?_

“Uncle Myungjun?” Sanha tugged at his sleeve with all his might and Myungjun was brought back to reality. “Can we get the hot chocolate now?”

The boy was looking at his pleadingly, “You promised.”

Myungjun looked down and patted Sanha on his cheek, “Of course, pumpkin. Let’s go.”

His eyes strayed back towards the rink for the last time, hoping to catch a glimpse of Bin before they go but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Shall we?” he gripped Sanha’s hand and was about to turn when their eyes met. 

There he was, a still, unmoving figure, staring at him across the rink.

For a while, neither of them moved.

Clutching Sanha’s fingers, Myungjun watched transfixed as Bin started gliding hesitantly across the ice, coming towards them, the other boy following closely behind. 

For once, Myungjun was grateful for the reassuring feel of the barrier digging into his back.

Bin braked in front of them sharply, sending a spray of fine mist flying in their direction.

“Binnie.” Myungjun gripped Sanha’s hand more tightly.

“Myungjun.” 

Bin’s face was smooth, not betraying any thoughts, but Myungjun was suddenly reminded of that one time when he went ice-skating on a lake with his granddad. _Be careful, Junnie. Especially near the edge. The ice looks so smooth and strong but sometimes there are cracks deep down. Always watch out._

Cracks in the ice.

Myungjun could see Bin was cracking deep down; the cracks were there - in his eyes, in his posture, in the way he looked at Myungjun, desperate and indifferent at the same time.

The sun was setting; its orange rays filtering through the bare branches were forming a halo around Bin’s frame. Myungjun noticed he was shivering slightly.

“Aren’t you cold, Binnie? You don’t have a coat on.”

_Oh my God. What rubbish am I talking?_

The only answer was a silent shrug of Bin’s shoulders, his gaze on Myungjun, but strangely empty, without really seeing him.

The atmosphere was unbearable.

“What’s your name?” a little voice behind Myungjun piped up uncertainly.

As if snapping out of a trance, Bin turned to Sanha who approached him hesitantly, a curious look in his eyes. He crouched down and smiled at the boy, his face showing softness that Myungjun knew would never be aimed at him again. The feeling of dejection after he realised that was overwhelming.

”Hi, I'm Bin. And you are…?”

“I'm Sanha.”

“Ah, Sanha,” Bin’s eyes creased into crescents in a smile so warm, Myungjun’s heart bled. “I’ve heard you like Dragonball Z. Do you think Goku can ice-skate?”

Holding onto Myungjun’s hand, Sanha started giggling and immediately launched into a heated discussion about Goku’s potential ice-skating abilities.

A cough interrupted Sanha’s chatter. Myungjun could see the boy in black standing behind Bin clearly didn’t relish the prospect of listening to a debate whether Goku would be better at speed skating or figure skating.

“Oh,” Bin straightened, blushing slightly. He pointed towards his friend who was eyeing Myungjun with a distinct hostility in his eyes.

“Myungjun, this is Minhyuk, or Rocky.”

“Hi,” Myungjun smiled nervously.

The boy eyed him up and down without a word. The dimple disappeared, “We spoke on the phone couple of times.”

The sun was still shining through the naked branches of the trees but the temperature seemed to have plunged suddenly. Even Sanha sensed to tension and gripped Myungjun’s hand a little tighter. 

Minhyuk eyed him icily for a moment, then turned to Bin. “ We are going to grab something to eat. Jungkook and Lisa are waiting…”

He left the sentence unfinished, eyes on Bin, challenging.

_Don’t go, please._

Bin opened his mouth, hesitated, then shut it again. In a heartbeat, Myungjun was transported back to Busan train station all those months ago, back to the moment when Bin was making up his mind to ask him out. Somehow he doubted events would unfold in a similar manner now.

“I…,” Bin gulped and turned to Minhyuk. “You go, I’ll catch up with you guys in a second.”

The unwillingness to leave was unmistakeably written all over Minhyuk’s face. He stared into Bin’s eyes, signalling him to move, to leave, to get going – but Bin didn’t budge, calmly enduring his friend’s stare until Minhyuk had no choice but to huff a grudging bye to Myungjun and leave – but not without throwing Bin one last worried look.

“You ok?” Bin was looking at him but his gaze made Myungjun shudder. Like a hollow shell, where all life had been sucked out, the emptiness in Bin’s eyes was unsettling.

“I’m fine, Binnie.”

_I love you. I miss you._

Myungjun longed to talk to Bin but didn’t know what to say. What should one say, what words would be right? How could one fix the fragile thing that lay right in front of him, shattered into thousand pieces?

“How are you, Binnie?”

“I’m ok.” The sad, indifferent shrug again. It broke Myungjun’s heart.

Myungjun swallowed thickly, “I am so sorry for what I did. If you gave us a chance, I would never hurt you again. I swear. I want you to be happy. I want to make you happy.”

He eyed Bin’s painfully thin frame, his pale face and hollow cheeks.

“You ok, Binnie? Are you eating enough? Are you sleeping well?”

For a moment Bin looked like he would break down in tears.

“I miss you.” Myungjun pleaded. He knew it was a lost cause but couldn’t help himself.

Bin blinked, as if awoken from a dream, “I… I need to go. Bye, Myungjun.”

_Please stay._

“Bye, Binnie.”

_Don’t go. Please._

 

“Who was that, uncle?” Sanha pointed towards the disappearing silhouette in black.

Myungjun had to blink away the tears, “Somebody I used to know, pumpkin.”

“He looked sad. He smiled at me but when he was talking to you he was really sad. What happened to him?”

“I hurt him, Sanha.”

The boy’s eyes were as huge as saucers, “How? Did you have a fight? Did you hit him?”

Myungjun smiled a little sadly and shook his head, “No, pumpkin. I said something to him that really hurt him.”

“But why? He was nice. He asked me about Dragonball Z and Goku. And he was nice to you. Why did you hurt him?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Myungjun desperately searched for words, at a loss how to explain to his young, innocent nephew that people hurt those they love.

He sighed heavily, “You know how sometimes you say things you don’t really mean because you angry? Or you lie because you’re scared to get into trouble. I did something like that. I didn’t think about it, I just did it and it hurt him.”

“Did you say sorry?” Sanha’s sweet, earnest face regarded him with concern.

“I did.”

‘Then he is not angry at you anymore.”

“No, he is not.”

_I hope he isn’t._

“But he still looked sad.”

“He probably is. Hurt stays longer than anger, pumpkin.”

“Hi, Myungjun.” A sound of an unfamiliar voice right behind them delivered him from the need for further explanation.

He swivelled around to see Minhyuk staring at him, his features inscrutable.

Sanha was following his gaze, frowning a little. He clearly remembered Minhyuk from their encounter barely ten minutes ago and Myungjun knew his nephew was not stupid. Myungjun and ‘Rocky,’ were all sort of things but being friends was not one of them and Sanha eyed them both with a deep frown on his little face.

Myungjun panicked. 

_What does he want? Will he threaten me? Surely he can't do anything in front of Sanha; he might hate me but nobody would do that. Sanha is only eight._

Before he could do anything, however, a cheerful voice of his sister saved him from further anxiety.

_Time to act quickly and get rid of him before Sanha says something to his mother._

“Hey, pumpkin! Did you have a nice time?” As she scooped up Sanha in her arms, Myungsoon noticed Minhyuk hovering next to them.

His sister was eyeing the unfamiliar face with a little uncertainty.

“Myungsoon, this is…”

“Hi, I’m Minhyuk, Myungjun’s friend,” Minhyuk’s smile was blinding, the dimple prominent again. His whole being radiated sudden friendliness and Myungjun’s skin crawled with uneasiness.

“Ah, nice to meet you.” His sister smiled warmly but Myungjun didn’t give her much chance to talk to his ‘friend’. He didn’t know why Minhyuk wanted to talk to him but had a distinctive feeling it would be an uncomfortable conversation that didn’t need any audience.

He turned to his sister, a fake enthusiastic smile plastered on his face, “Did you find something nice for Sungyong?”

“I did. I’m so pleased. Will show you when we get home. Thank you so much for looking after Sanha.”

“No problem at all, we had a good time, didn’t we?” He patted Sanha’s cheek lightly. “Listen,” he tried really hard to sound natural, at ease, even if he felt anything but. “You go ahead. I promised Sanha hot chocolate, do you want to grab some and I'll catch up with you in a minute?” He gestured towards Minhyuk, who was standing silently and watching him like a sphinx. “I just want to chat to Minhyuk for a moment.”

His sister smiled pleasantly and said her goodbyes, and Sanha forgot about anything he might have thought about Minhyuk the instant hot chocolate was mentioned. With a spring in his step, he followed his mum to a small café next to the ice rink.

Being left alone, Minhyuk didn’t beat around the bush. “This won’t take long. I need to get back before Bin notices and kicks my ass for interfering with his life.”

“I came,” he held Myungjun’s gaze, his look hard and uncomfortable, “to tell you to leave Bin alone. He doesn’t need you and your damn lies in his life. Not after what happened to him before but you have probably no idea.”

“I know what happened to him. He told me,” Myungjun’s tone was defiant. He hated the fact that he had to defend himself in front of a boy who looked like he was barely out of high school. “He told me about Tim.”

Mutely, Minhyuk kept staring at him and Myungjun felt like he was interrogated. “He… he told me how awful it was and how you helped him when they broke up. How you helped him when he was really down, how you moved in with him.”

“And after that?”

“What do you mean, after that?” He resented the cold scrutiny of the younger boy but tried to remember that this was Bin’s best friend who was worried about him. It was difficult though to feel any warmth in face of Minhyuk’s stony antagonism.

“Did he tell you what happened after that?” Minhyuk cocked his eyebrows quizzically. There was more than a hint of mockery in his voice. “Of course he didn’t. I call it phase two. The self-destruction. And it’s happening right now, all over again.”

“What?” Myungjun whispered, horrified. “What is he doing to himself?”

“Oh, he is not cutting himself or anything like that – if that’s what you’re worried about.” Minhyuk’s sarcastic smile didn’t do anything to alleviate Myungjun’s uneasiness. “He found a more socially acceptable way of punishing himself.”

He paused, looking weary and resigned all of a sudden. “He goes to the gym.”

“What?” Myungjun blinked, perplexed. He didn’t understand. How could going to the gym be destructive? What was Minhyuk talking about?

The boy sensed Myungjun’s confusion and rubbed his forehead, as if it pained him to talk about it. “He goes to the gym. Every waking minute. He barely eats. He exercises before he goes to school, he trains after we finished with classes. I found him in the studio at 1am once, when I forgot some stuff there and came to pick it up.”

_Oh Binnie._

“He has energy drinks for breakfast and coffee for dinner. He barely sleeps. He signed up for a marathon in three months. I can't watch him anymore. And he is starting to take it out on the kids. I am back now, finished my other schedules, so I took over from him when it comes to salsa classes; thought he could have a little rest after he’s been pitching in for me for so long - but it’s no use. Every spare moment he has, he fills it with pumping iron, dancing or pounding the treadmill. It hurts me to watch. If it goes on like this, he will scare off the kids.”

“Scare them off? How? ”

“Well, he is ok around the little ones; with them he is the usual sweet self, thank God. But the older ones, the teenagers - he is driving them so hard that two days ago one of them finished the class crying and the others weren’t that far from it either.”

“Oh my God.”

“To be honest, in this case I didn’t mind. The boy is a little piece of shit, really spoilt and arrogant, and Bin behaved like a saint for a long time – but that’s not the point here, is it?” He fixed his unmoving stare at Myungjun.

A sudden wave of anger swelled in him, “What do you want from you me?”

“Stay away from him. Stay away from him, leave him alone, get out of his life – have I said it clear enough?”

“He is a grown up man, he can do what he wants.”

Minhyuk rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t know what he wants right now. He just wants to forget and in the process he is doing his best to starve and exercise himself to death. I’ve been through this with him once and I know it will pass but I really don’t need you to show up and get his hopes up. Get out of his life, ok?”

“I wasn’t planning on meeting him here! You can't really blame me for today, can you?”

Minhyuk deflated a little, as if he didn’t consider the possibility at all.

“I suppose not,” he admitted grudgingly, “ but I saw the way you looked at him. You still want him back, don’t you?”

There was nothing Myungjun could say to that.

“Please, let him be. He deserves someone better.” Minhyuk’s tone changed from cold to pleading. “He is a great guy, he deserves to be happy. Just let him be, please. Please.”

A wave of desperation washed over him. Minhyuk was right. Suddenly all his hopes seemed futile, unattainable – but he was damned if he was to admit as much to The Rock.

“You know what? My life is none of your business. Leave me alone.” He shot Minhyuk a murderous look, turned away and left without a second glance. The anger bubbling in him, anger at himself, was making his vision blurry.

From behind, he could all but feel Minhyuk’s eyes shooting arrows into his back.

…………………..

He was sitting in the dark, a curled shape on the sofa in front of flickering television. Image of Bin, orange glow of the setting sun dancing in his hair, didn’t leave him. 

Ringing of his phone interrupted the heavy silence. He glanced at the screen and frowned as he saw an unfamiliar number and words that didn’t make any sense.

_Did u mean it?_

Frowning in confusion, he tried to remember whom he talked to that day at work. Perhaps a colleague from another department? But no matter how hard he tried, there was nothing that could explain the cryptic message. Giving up, he quickly typed the answer.

_Sorry must have a wrong number. ___

____

The reply came back immediately.

____

_Did u mean what u said at the ice rink?_

____

Myungjun stared at the phone in his hands and let it drop on the sofa. _Oh my God._

All of a sudden, he found it difficult to breathe and his head felt dizzy.

____

With trembling hands, he picked up the phone again.

____

_I meant every word, Binnie._

____

 


	13. Chapter 13

 

Myungjun left his office feeling elated. His whole day went smoothly, a perfect Friday to start a nice, peaceful weekend. A meeting with a client in the morning had been successful, he felt productive the whole afternoon and a relaxed lunch with couple of colleagues, having enjoyed the frosty, sunny air outside, was the cherry on top of a great day.

The feeling of lightness, however, was not caused by anything that happened at work; he knew that. If he felt good, it was a mere by-product of the euphoria that was filling his whole being since the night before.

Bin has texted him.

After Myungjun’s reply, the phone remained silent, there were no more messages, but Myungjun’s heart filled with absurd, illogical hope.

Bin has texted him.

He didn’t mind that they were no more words from him. It was a beginning. 

As he emerged from the revolving door amongst the steady flow of people heading home and turned right towards his bus stop, a familiar figure leaning against the wall sent his heart racing.

“Hi,” Bin straightened and ambled slowly towards him, wrapping his arms around his body to protect himself from the icy air.

“Hi,” whispered Myungjun, not daring to breathe. He stopped and stood completely still, afraid to move, lest Bin would disappear.

If was difficult not to scream and run straight into his arms, but Myungjun restrained himself. Unsure about the other’s intention, the safest option was to… stare. He nearly forgot how nice it felt to look at Bin who wasn’t angry or desperately sad. Today’s Bin felt neither; he felt slightly detached but intense at the same time. Myungjun knew he was being scrutinised. Was it foolish to hope that Bin was watching him this intently because he, too, had missed him? He wasn’t sure. The feeling of elation, the sense of lightness that was there a heartbeat ago, before they saw each other, evaporated rapidly in the face of a very real possibility of Bin changing his mind and coming here just to tell him to get out of his life for good.

For a while, neither of them moved. Nothing in Bin’s look betrayed his feelings and Myungjun’s heart started sinking dejectedly when suddenly, Bin smiled. 

Myungjun’s look couldn’t tear away from the sudden transformation of Bin’s face, the faint blush that tinted his cheeks pink, the warmth that radiated from his eyes, the warmth that was now directed solely at him. Despite the frosty temperature and inky skies above, there was a sun shining at Myungjun now, his own sun, and he was basking in its brightness.

His dreamy gazing, however, was interrupted when he noticed Bin hugging himself tighter and his whole body shuddering rather hard.

“How long have you been standing here?” he eyed Bin with worry. “You look frozen to death.”

“Yeah,” Bin laughed a bit shakily, “I am sort of cold.” By now he was shivering so badly, his teeth were chattering. Myungjun couldn’t tell whether if was from cold or the nerves.

_Oh Binnie._

He couldn’t stand it anymore. He flew into Bin’s arms, hugging his thin, shaking body, laughing and crying at the same time. 

“Binnie.” The tears were rolling down his cheeks. “I missed you. I missed you so much.”

Bin’s arms crushed him in a bear hug, “I missed you too.”

For a while they stood in the middle of the crowd, ignoring people streaming around them in all directions, holding onto each other.

Eventually, Myungjun composed himself. He gently rubbed Bin’s back, “You’re freezing. Do you want to go somewhere, grab something quick to eat, warm up?”

“Yeah.” Bin’s eyes creased in a smile and he hugged Myungjun even tighter. “Sounds good.”

“Could you let go though? You’re sort of suffocating me.”

“Oh,” Bin let go, self-conscious, and rubbed his fingers together. The skin of his hands was raw from cold.

Not having his lungs crushed, Myungjun was capable of coherent thinking again and something in their conversation didn’t add up. It took him a second to realise what made no sense.

“You sure you’ll have time? Don’t you have classes to teach tonight?”

“Oh.” There was a heartbeat of silence, then Bin looked up, embarrassed. “Yesterday night, Minhyuk told me to have a day off today - and tomorrow. He ordered me to go straight home after school and sleep. And he banned me from touching my bike, my running shoes or any gym equipment within a 100 km radius until Monday.”

“Well, you clearly didn’t listen, seeing that you are here and not at home in bed,” Myungjun smirked a little, “but if you don’t need to hurry, do you want to come to my place and share a box of fried chicken?”

………………

Myungjun unlocked the door, balancing the takaway box they bought on the way home in one hand.

“Come in.” He waved his hand, ushering Bin inside. 

Myungjun’s apartment was small but bore an unmistakable stamp of his owner. The hallway was painted warm orange and sketches and photos of quirky buildings hung on the walls. 

Myungjun shed his shoes and took off his coat, relishing the warmth that was enveloping them, and Bin followed suit.

As he turned to pick up their dinner from the windowsill, Myungjun did a double take, “Jeez, Binnie, no wonder you were freezing out there! Have you heard of wrapping up warm in winter?”

Bin frowned in confusion for a moment, then eyed his own body without much interest. “I don’t know… I haven’t been thinking much about clothes lately… “

The thin cotton t-shirt that he wore under his coat seemed woefully inadequate for the bitter December weather outside. It also looked slept in. Myungjun’s chest tightened with guilt. The remnants of what had happened suddenly seemed to threaten the fragile sense of hope he was holding onto.

He took Bin’s hand and pulled him into the living room, his movements hurried, frantic.

“Come and sit down,” he pointed to the sofa hastily. “I will get some blankets. You need to warm up.”

He put the takeaway box on the coffee table. The smell made his mouth water but food wasn’t the priority now. 

Almost jogging, he quickly brought an armful of thick, soft blankets from the bedroom, wrapped the biggest one of them tightly around Bin’s shoulders and draped another one around his knees.

When satisfied with the result, he slowly sat down next to him, unsure of what to do next. Silence that none of them registered a minute ago seemed deafening all of a sudden. Myungjun wrung his fingers without a word, eyes trained on the carpet. A wave of shyness was constricting his throat and clamping his mouth shut. The words that were all bursting to get out, to tell Bin how he missed him, how he loved him, were all stuck inside, unable to escape.

_Don’t be stupid. Bin is right here. Here. Talk to him, you idiot._

He braced himself and looked up, a little afraid, but the moments their eyes met, he knew he hadn’t needed to worry.

Bin was watching him with a little smile, resembling an oversized burrito, immobilised in swathes of thick fabric, and looked so cute with his hair sticking in all directions that suddenly Myungjun forgot about his fear, about his inability to form a coherent sentence and his heart was flooded with warmth. 

_Maybe we can talk later._

He smiled back and picked a piece of chicken from the box.

“Open wide,” he winked and held it in front of Bin’s mouth.

Bin giggled and sank his teeth into the drumstick. 

…………………

After polishing the entire content of the box together – Bin still wrapped in the blankets and unable to move, chuckling for most of the time – Myungjun grabbed a handful of paper napkins.

“You look a mess,” gently, he started wiping Bin’s mouth and cheeks.

Bin’s eyes followed his every movement. The cute, puppy-like smile disappeared and Myungjun’s hand faltered.

“I missed you, Binnie,” he whispered. He let go of the napkins and touched Bin’s face, a hesitant stroke, light as a butterfly, as if unsure whether it will be tolerated or swatted away.

Bin stayed still for a moment, watching Myungjun silently, then leaned into his touch and, with a sigh, slowly closed his eyes.

Myungjun looked at Bin’s head resting against his palm and something in his heart started unravelling. 

“I’m so sorry, Binnie,” he whispered. “Can we start again? I promise I will never lie to you, I will never hurt you.”

“I missed you too. So much.” With his eyes closed, Bin looked peaceful like a child. “After you left the studio I wanted to call you – but I was still so angry. I tried to persuade myself that it wouldn’t work out, that you were no good for me. Minhyuk and I talked, he also thought it wasn’t a good idea, us to get back together.”

Myungjun drew a sharp breath but stopped himself just in time.

_I will kill Minhyuk. I swear I will kill him. Just not now._

“I shouldn’t have listened to him but I did,” Bin continued. “I guess he only wanted to help. So I tried to forget,” he sighed and, like a cat, he rubbed his face against Myungjun’s hand.

“The thing is,” Bin’s straightened suddenly, eyes now wide open, “I don’t want to forget about you. I… I want to start again.” He began tugging at the blanket, desperately trying to free himself, eyes not leaving Myungjun.

Myungjun’s heart was thumping so wildly, he was sure Bin could hear it. “I want to start again too.” With shaking hands, Myungjun unwrapped the thick folds of fabric.

“Binnie.”

His fingers found the skin of Bin’s arms, palms filling with the curve of his shoulders, sliding down onto his chest.

The warmth of Bin’s body through the thin t-shirt was scorching his hands.

“You are not cold anymore.”

Bin smiled, grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around them. They stayed still in the little cocoon, their foreheads touching, the heat of their bodies warming the space between them.

“I don’t feel cold anymore.” Bin was the first one to break the silence, the first to move. His lips felt warm on Myungjun’s, warm, soft and gentle.

This should have been our first kiss, thought Myungjun.

He leaned into the kiss, slowly, unhurriedly, tracing every angle, every plane of Bin’s face. It felt achingly familiar, yet exhilarating at the same time, the velvety skin of Bin’s cheekbones, the curve of his nose; Myungjun couldn’t get enough, his fingers were hungry, sliding across the arch of Bin’s eyebrows, stroking his temples, trying to remember every minute detail of the landscape that was his love’s face.

Bin sighed under his touch, “I missed this.” His hands trailed along Myungjun’s back, up his neck, into his hair. “I missed you so much.”

He leaned closer, fingers twisting in Myungjun’s hair, his movement becoming urgent, his lips hard and ravenous, the weight of his body suddenly on Myungjun, crushing him underneath.

Myungjun yelped in pain as the armrest of his old sofa dug sharply into his neck.

Bin pulled back abruptly, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, did I hurt you?” He helped Myungjun up, looking absolutely mortified.

Myungjun sat up, panting, feeling a little light-headed, a little overwhelmed. 

This was new. 

Usually, if he invited someone over, it was on his terms, knowing fully what he wanted.

He did not know what he wanted right now though, whether he wanted to go slow or fast; he wasn’t even absolutely certain what Bin wanted – although the last couple of minutes gave him a pretty clear indication.

Still, the overwhelming mental leap from not knowing whether he would ever see Bin again barely two hours ago to facing a very real possibility of having sex with him right now left Myungjun’s head spinning. He knew he wanted Bin back in his life; that was one thing he had no doubts about at all. But things seemed to be going very fast suddenly and he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

Bin must have read the hesitation in his face and his features softened. He shuffled closer and enveloped Myungjun in a careful hug. “It’s ok. We don’t need to do anything,” His voice was soft. “We have time.”

Myungjun gasped a little, “Did you just… Were you… you wanted…,” he left the words hanging, mentally cursing himself for being so inept.

_Why am I suddenly acting like a fourteen-year old who cannot say the word ‘sex’? What’s wrong with me?_

Bin smiled a little shamefacedly, “I don’t know. I wasn’t really thinking. I just wanted… I’m so happy to be with you again. That’s all.” He buried his face in Myungjun’s hair. “Everything else can wait.”

“I don’t deserve you, Binnie.”

Bin just hugged him tighter without a word.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Myungjun relaxed in Bin’s arms, pulling the blanket they discarded earlier over them both.

He could feel Bin smiling into his hair, “Sounds good.”

Myungjun eyed the extensive movie collection, which occupied several shelves of his massive bookcase.

“Hitch? I want something romantic tonight,”

“You are so sappy.”

Myungjun laughed and got up to get the DVD. When he returned to the sofa, Bin smiled and opened the blanket for him to slide back in.

…………………

Myungjun loved Hitch, Will Smith was one of his secret pleasures, but he found it hard to focus on the movie that night. 

Bin didn’t last long; within twenty minutes he was out, his head heavy on Myungjun’s shoulder, one arm thrown around Myungjun’s waist. 

At some point he muted the sound as not to wake him up. The room filled with the sound of Bin’s breathing and Myungjun thought it the sweetest sound he has ever heard in his life.

When the movie ended, he didn’t dare to move at first. After a minute, he slowly turned his head, pressed his face into Bin’s hair and inhaled his scent. 

He still couldn’t believe this was happening; that Bin was in his apartment, asleep on his sofa, that they had kissed.

That Bin was back, willing to forgive, to start again.

Ever so carefully, he pulled him closer and let them both sink into the cushions scattered on the sofa. Bin sighed and snuggled closer but didn’t wake up. 

Myungjun wrapped his arms around the relaxed body next to him and felt his life was complete. He didn’t need anything else to feel happy.

It was a strange feeling, to experience happiness as simple and pure as this.

The old Myungjun would be tracing the rock-hard muscles of Bin’s arms and most likely divesting him of his clothes right now, to find out whether he looked as good without them as he did with them on.

This night felt different. He still saw Bin’s beauty but he also felt how fragile he looked, his skin almost translucent; how feather light his body felt against his own, despite Bin’s height. 

He was cradling his love in his arms and instead of lust, it was tenderness that was flooding his heart.

………………..

Myungjun woke up, slightly disorientated. It took him a second to realise he wasn’t in his bed, and he wasn’t alone.

He smiled as memories of the night before flooded his brain.

It was still dark outside and they were still in the living room but there was a nagging feeling on the edges of his consciousness that something was out of place and this was what woke him up. Then he felt it; a hand sliding from behind onto his chest. 

Bin’s hand. 

His whole body tensed. He didn’t remember how they fell asleep on the narrow sofa the night before, how he found himself enveloped in Bin’s arms, Bin’s body pressing into his back; the only thing he could think of right now was the hand stroking his chest.

For a while, he lay completely still, aware of sudden shortness of his breath, the wild beating of his heart, the excitement twisting his insides.

He closed his eyes, feeling Bin chest rising sharply against his back, feeling their closeness.

This was the line.

In his head he has crossed it already, he was already there, in the universe where there was not a shred of fabric separating them, where there was not an inch of space between their bodies, where his whole world was Bin - yet he didn’t move.

_Anticipation is almost as good as the real thing._

Almost.

It was difficult to tell who moved first, whether it was him who turned around or maybe it was Bin’s hand that rolled him over; their lips met halfway, hungry and desperate.

Bin’s lips. They felt different from the night before, or maybe it was him who was being different; he couldn’t think clearly anymore, he knew this was going fast, but in the middle of the night thoughts are always dangerously vague, the logic and reason hazed.

The fabric of Bin’s t-shirt felt like an iron barrier; he pulled it off desperately and almost wept with relief when his palms filled with the silk of Bin’s skin.

“Myungjun,” 

He opened his eyes. Bin was watching him. There was so much adoration and love in his eyes that it was almost too much to bear.

_Love._

Suddenly, he felt ashamed of himself. Everything felt askew, incomplete, like a puzzle with one piece missing. 

He let go and pushed lightly against Bin’s chest, desperate to create some distance, “Wait, Binnie. Wait. No, stop.” He grabbed his hands and held them still.

The room filled with an awkward silence as they both froze.

He watched the other’s eyes fill with hurt. “You… You don’t want me?” Bin pulled away from him abruptly and curled up in a ball at the far end of the sofa.

Myungjun’s chest tightened at the sight. If there was anything worse than seeing Bin’s starved body in the dim light of the December small hours, it was to watch the vulnerability and doubt in his look.

_I did this to him. I broke him so badly, that it only takes one misunderstood sentence and he thinks I feel nothing for him, all over again._

He scooted closer and stroked Bin’s arm, ignoring the stiffness in his posture, the pain in his look, “I want you, Binnie. I want you so much it hurts. I want you more than anything else right now. But I need to tell you something before we… I should have told you before… before I started ripping your clothes off. I’m sorry.”

He drew a deep breath, “I love you.”

After couple of seconds of stunned silence, Bin half-sobbed, half-laughed shakily, the relief in his voice palpable.

“You scared me.” He exhaled, his face breaking into a hesitant smile. “I thought…”

Myungjun leaned his head against Bin’s shoulder, “I’m so sorry. But I didn’t want to tell you I loved you while we were… because sometimes people mean it, sometimes it’s just the heat of the moment. I should know. I’ve done it many times and didn’t mean a word of it. And right now, it was like the old me, but I don’t want that. Not with you.”

He gave Bin’s shoulder a tiny kiss, not quite daring to meet his eyes, “I love you. I want you to know that.”

“I love you too.”

Myungjun laughed; or maybe it was a sob, he wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter as the sound was instantly muffled when Bin scooped him in his arms.

“What are you doing, Binnie?” he giggled as Bin buried his nose in the crook of his neck and inhaled deeply. It tickled.

“I'm smelling you.” 

“What? Why?” Despite feeling embarrassed, Myungjun felt a twinge of excitement in the pit of his stomach.

“Because you smell good,” Bin’s lips brushed against his ear and slid into his hair. “And I want to remember your smell because I love you.”

He wished the night would never end.

They wriggled on the sofa not quite able to settle, their bodies not yet used to the novelty of it, still finding the best way to slot their limbs into new places around each other, places where it was hard to tell where one ended and the other begun. 

“Your sofa is so small,” Bin whined.

“That’s because your legs are too long.”

“Junnie?”

“Hm?” Myungjun was resting his head on Bin’s shoulder, tracing the outlines of Bin’s abs with his finger. The night lamp was casting a soft pool of light on their intertwined bodies.

“Can I call you Junnie?” Bin caught his hand and started kissing his fingertips, one by one, and Myungjun was melting with every touch of his lips.

He chuckled against Bin’s chest. “You can.”

“Ok. Junnie?”

“Yeah?” His brain felt floaty, pleasantly fuzzy, eyes growing heavy with tiredness of the good kind, tiredness that comes after a day that meant something.

“You know how you told me you loved me…” Bin was playing with his hair now, twisting the strands around his fingers, “and I told you I loved you too…”

“I meant it, Binnie,” Myungjun lifted his head, propping himself on one elbow. “ I meant every word.”

Bin’s eyes looked so alive, the glint in them so warm, it transported him back to Busan train station where he first drowned in them.

“I know you meant it,” Bin tenderly pushed Myungjun’s hair off his forehead and leaned closer, a grin on his face suddenly replacing the soft look from a moment ago, “I believe you.”

His breath tickled Myungjun’s ear and sent a tiny shiver down his spine. “And now that we have sorted the love bit,” there was a hint of something not quite innocent in Bin’s voice, “does it mean you can finally finish ripping off my clothes, please?”

………………..

He wasn’t sure why he woke up. The greyish light filtering through the curtains was a shade lighter than it had been when they finally fell asleep but the city behind the windows wasn’t fully awake yet; the morning has barely begun. Bin wasn’t in bed but the spot next to him was still warm; the pillow still carried the imprint of his head. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement in the living room and Myungjun looked up. Through the open door he saw Bin quietly closing the bathroom door behind him, moving soundlessly around the room, picking up clothes they had left behind in their stumble to the bedroom. His bare feet barely made a sound on the thick carpet. Myungjun watched him stopping in front of the big window, gazing outside, the bundle of clothes cradled against his chest. It was snowing outside and the eerie light streaming in was painting Bin’s bare skin a soft shade of silver. There was something fragile in the whole scene, something vulnerable, and Myungjun felt a desperate urge to hug him and tell him everything would be ok. 

“Binnie?” he called softly. “Come back to bed.”

Bin jumped up a little guiltily, then smiled at him from across the room. He returned to the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed, clutching the clothes on his lap.

“Sorry I woke you up. I can't sleep.”

“It’s ok,” Myungjun run his fingers down Bin’s back, “Why can't you sleep? Is something wrong?”

Bin shrugged, “I usually get up at this time to go to the gym before school.”

“You’re kidding me,” with a groan, Myungjun rolled over and checked his phone on the bedside table, “it’s 5:45.”

He patted the spot next to him, “Come back to sleep.”

“I should probably go for a run,” next to him, Bin fidgeted nervously, “I’m behind this week.”

“Binnie,” Myungjun sat up, a hint of warning tinting his voice. “You know you are banned; Minhyuk’s orders. Me and him, we might not like each other but I agree with him completely on this one. You need to have a rest this weekend. And besides, it’s snowing. Come back to bed,” he took the clothes out of Bin’s hands and tossed them aside.

Myungjun watched Bin hesitating for a moment, doubt etched on his face, then his features softened.

“Ok.” He slid back to bed. The mattress creaked a little under his weight and as Bin’s arm slung over him, Myungjun felt his whole existence finally falling into place.

…………………..

The bedroom was drenched in white light; outside, the snow was coming thick and fast. He watched Bin sleeping, his face relaxed, limbs sprawled across the bed, and was content to just be, right in the here and now.

The minutes were stretching blissfully. His eyes grew heavy again; mind drifting in and out of sleep, time shifting fluently around them, Bin’s breathing by his side the only constant in the vague, shapeless, light filled space.

Gradually, the world behind the windows started reaching out its tentacles, tugging at his consciousness; the sounds from outside, although muffled by the snow, were sucking him mercilessly back into the realm of reality.

Next to him Bin started stirring. Myungjun smiled and pressed a kiss on Bin’s shoulder, “Hey, babe.”

Without warning, Bin woke up with a gasp, “Oh my god, what time is it?” There was panic in his voice and he sat up abruptly, running fingers through his hair, his whole body a ball of anxiety.

“Shh, it’s ok, Binnie,” Myungjun scrambled up and enveloped Bin in a back hug. “You don’t need to do anything, remember? Your day off?”

Bin laughed shakily, his whole body slumping in relief. “Oh, right.”

Myungjun pressed a kiss on Bin’s cheek, “We can do whatever we want. We have the whole day.”

Bin turned his head and their lips met, slowly. Myungjun held Bin against him, pressing Bin’s body into his chest, savouring their closeness.

This was how he wanted to wake up every day for the rest of his life.

The romantic moment was somewhat ruined by a loud grumbling of Bin’s stomach.

Myungjun laughed out loud and let go. He slapped Bin’s thigh. “Up. Have a shower, I have an idea.”

“What you do want to do? And stop laughing at me.” Bin’s pout was endearing.

“I’m not laughing at you. Come on, get up. We are going out to get some breakfast.”

While Bin was in the bathroom, Myungjun went through his drawers. He picked a t-shirt, a warm hoodie and found the one and only beanie he possessed, a dark green one, with a matching pair of gloves.

He knocked on the bathroom door. “I’ve got some clothes for you, Binnie.”

“What’s wrong with mine?” 

“Nothing, it’s just that you gonna freeze in only a t-shirt under your coat. I have a hoodie that will fit you; it was always a little long for me. And a clean t-shirt; yours is starting to stink.”

Bin’s laughter reverberated through the little bathroom. “That’s an awful thing to say.”

“But it’s true,” Myungjun felt a little bit silly conversing through the bathroom door but that didn’t prevent him from grinning from ear to ear. Suddenly he felt daring. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure,” there was not a hint of hesitation in Bin’s voice and he gripped the handle a little nervously.

To his bitter disappointment, Bin was already dressed. His hair was damp from the shower and he was rubbing it vigorously with one of Myungjun’s towels.

He pointed at the t-shirt Bin was wearing. 

“Take that stinky thing off,” despite laughing, Myungjun couldn’t help but feeling a little out of breath at the thought of seeing Bin shirtless again.

“Is this an excuse to see me half-naked?” The hesitation in Bin’s voice came completely unexpected.

“Absolutely,” Myungjun’s grin was not entirely innocent. He pinched the fabric between his thumb and forefinger and scrunched his nose in mock disgust. “Off.”

Bin crossed his arms in front of his chest. The sudden embarrassment radiating off him was so endearing, Myungjun had to laugh a little.

“You weren’t so shy earlier,” he could have kissed the deep crimson of Bin’s cheeks.

“That was… that was different. You weren’t staring creepily, ” Bin laughed a little, clearly self-conscious.

Myungjun’s heart melted. “Fine,” he smiled softly, “I'm sorry. I'll wait outside.” He set the hoodie and the t-shirt on the windowsill and turned to leave.

Bin grabbed his hand. “No, it’s ok. Just… just don’t stare like that.”

“Like what? When was I staring?”

“Right now, when we were talking.”

It was Myungjun’s turn to feel embarrassed. Ducking his head, the took great care not to gaze too openly at Bin who took off the crumbled t-shirt; he handed him the clean one without even a glance in his direction.

“Junnie,” Bin’s fingers found his wrist and pulled him closer. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. Please look at me.”

Myungjun lifted his eyes, carefully avoiding Bin’s bare chest.

“Junnie, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. It’s just… the way you were looking at me...”

“But I saw you naked last night,” Myungjun wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not.

“That was different, you weren’t staring,” Bin giggled a little helplessly, ducking his head.

“I didn’t have much time to stare yesterday.” Myungjun wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, relishing the sight of Bin blushing even more. He took the clean t-shirt from Bin’s hands and pulled it carefully over his head. “I was busy.”

He smoothed the white fabric over Bin’s chest. “Better?”

………………….

The street stretching in front of them was covered in thick white blanket and it was still snowing.

Bin laughed out loud and started a silly dance on the grass verge in front of the building, catching snowflakes with his tongue.

“You look very Christmassy,” Myungjun smiled.

“I bet you picked the colours on purpose,” Bin stopped, panting slightly. He pulled at the red hoodie he was wearing. Its vibrant shade, peeking from underneath his black coat, combined with the dark green of his hat and gloves made him look like a cute Christmas advert.

“You are my present this year,” Myungjun giggled. “I thought I might as well wrap you up nicely.”

“So,” Bin grabbed his hands. “Where are we going?”

“Surprise.”

………………….

Sitting on the bus, Myungjun wiped the condensation off the window and gazed outside. Bin next to him took off his gloves and was covertly touching his hand under their coats, intertwining their fingers. 

He smiled gently and squeezed his hand back, smiling to himself.

“What are you doing for Christmas, Junnie?” 

The question took him by surprise. He turned to Bin, frowning a little, “I don’t know yet.”

“Come with me. We are planning a big party in the studio. Minhyuk is going to confess to Lisa,” he grinned cheekily.

“Oh my God, that’s so creepy. Why does he need an audience for that?”

Bin sweet giggle warmed his heart, “Oh no, he choreographed a dance for her and he will perform it on the night. We won’t get to see the actual confession bit, you weirdo. But he wanted to surprise her and he needed her to be there, so we planned this big party, around fifty people, all of us are going to come, even Mina is dropping by after having a fancy dinner with her fiancé. Jungkook is bringing his boyfriend. Please come.” 

Bin’s cute pout was very hard to resist but Myungjun needed a moment to calm his wildly beating heart. 

_He wants to introduce me to his friends. After what I’ve done to him, he still wants to do that._

The smile on Bin’s face faltered a little, “I mean, you don’t need to… if you don’t want to…”

“I would love to come. I would really love to, Binnie.”

...............

“Oh. I know where we are going.” Bin giggled when they stopped in front of Bogota’s windows.

Myungjun took a deep breath, “I want to do it right this time. I want to forget everything that happened and I want to start again.”

Bin enveloped him in a hug. “I don’t want to forget last night,” he whispered quietly.

Myungjun’s ears burned despite the cold.

“And I want to remember us dancing together,” Bin’s words were melting Myungjun’s heart but he pushed him away a little, rolling his eyes, feigning exasperation.

“You know what I mean. I don’t mean literally forget; it’s symbolic. Let’s just pretend we have just met and… I really want to do it right this time, Binnie. No more lies.”

Bin watched him intently. “Pretend? Like this was our first date?”

“Yes.”

“I have one condition though.”

“Oh, ok,” Myungjun’s heart sank a little, unsure what to expect, crumbling a little under Bin’s direct gaze.

“You know the ‘sex only on the third date’ rule? I don’t want that. I want a new ‘sex after every date’ rule.”

Myungjun gasped loudly, earning himself a couple of indignant stares from random passers-by. “Binnie!”

Bin’s grin was so wide, his eyes almost disappeared. “What? You not ok with that?”

“I… Of course I am, it’s just… you are suddenly so… Oh my god, it’s too early for a conversation like this!” By now Myungjun knew he was blushing so much, the colour of his cheeks was most likely matching the shade of Bin’s hoodie.

Bin gigged sweetly, evidently pleased with himself, a grabbed Myungjun’s hand. “Let’s go in. I haven’t been this hungry for ages.”

………………

They stood in front of the counter, eyeing the familiar black board on the wall.

“They have really nice baguettes,” Myungjun mused dreamily. Let’s have them with some cheese. They are so tasty.”

“ _You_ are tasty,” Bin’s arm sneaked around Myungjun’s waist and grabbed his side.

Myungjun squealed at the sudden contact and watched in embarrassment as the exquisitely looking boy waiting to serve them supressed a little laugh.

Bin exchanged a conspiratory grin with the waiter, his hand still firmly planted on Myungjun’s waist. “Oh, don’t mind him, he’s always loud like this.”

The boy bit his lips briefly but composed himself. 

“How can I help you?” The smile on his beautiful face was still wide but returned to the level of professional.

“What do you want, Junnie?”

“Can I have a double espresso, please?” He badly needed to wake up, in case this was all a dream.

Bin turned to the waiter, “And could I have the same, please? Or,” he paused briefly, frowning a little, “Would it be possible to get a caramel macchiato?” He smiled apologetically at the boy on front of him.

“Of course, sir. It’s no problem at all, I’ll make one for you.”

“I haven’t had it for months. I don’t even remember what it tastes like.” Bin’s voice sounded thoughtful, a little dazed.

Myungjun’s heart squeezed painfully but he didn’t say a word. He quickly added baguettes with some cheese to their order, determined to get as many calories into Bin as possible.

“Could I interest you in some of our Christmas offers? We have some lovely German gingerbread cookies.” The boy pointed at little chocolate hearts in the glass display cabinet. “Soft gingerbread, filled with apricot jam, coated in dark chocolate. A traditional treat in Germany at Christmas time.”

Myungjun opened his mouth to automatically say no, as he almost always did when faced with some ridiculously overpriced import, but the sight of Bin staring dreamily at the hearts stopped him in his tracks. “Thank you, we’ll have those too.”

………………

Sitting at the little table for two, the food having arrived in front of them, he inhaled the aroma of freshly brewed coffee mixed with the scent of crusty bread, ripe cheese and spicy cookies. In spite of the cacophony of delicious smells, he didn’t really feel hungry.

The sight of Bin smiling at him was enough.

For a while, neither of them spoke, then Bin reached for one of the chocolate hearts nesting in a little basket. He held in in front of Myungjun’s mouth and grinned, “Open wide…”

Myungjun chuckled and bit into the little heart. 

“Oh my god.” His taste buds were overwhelmed by a mixture of soft dough with a hint of heat to it – that’s ginger, thought Myungjun - set off by faintly acidic sharpness of the apricot jam and a bitter, velvety smoothness of the chocolate coating.

“Good?” Bin’s eyes were glued to his mouth.

“Amazing,” Myungjun breathed out. “Try one.”

“I will,” Bin smiled softly. “But I think we should do something else first.”

His smile grew into a cheeky, wide grin, “I think introductions are in order. I’m Moon Bin.”

Myungjun smiled back and took his hand, “And I’m Kim Myungjun.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! 
> 
> This is a pure indulgence, I was missing this au too much - enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
> .................................
> 
>  

 

Bin kicks the door open with his foot, balancing three boxes on top of each other.

“Why do you need to have so much stuff?”

Myungjun follows behind, hugging a massive potted plant and trying to manoeuvre it through the door.

“Oh my god, can you move out of the way, Binnie? That plant is a murder to carry; don’t moan if I drop it on your toe.”

Bin looks over his shoulder and laughs at the sight, long palm-like leaves quivering above Myungjun’s head like an exotic parasol as he strains under the weight of the massive green beast.

“Put that awful thing over there in the corner,” Bin gestures vaguely as Myungjun emerges from the hallway and stands a little lost, eyeing the piles of stuff rapidly filling up Bin’s living room.

“Don’t insult Cleopatra, if she senses your animosity, she will wilt,’ Myungjun carefully lowers the pot onto the floor and straightens with a wince, “Jeez, I think I've done my back in.”

Bin grunts and deposits the boxes in the middle of the room where a massive pyramid of them is already towering high.

“Please, don’t tell me I will have to address that thing with a name. Honestly, it would be borderline creepy. And we are not having it in the bedroom.”

“Why?” Myungjun whines, casting Cleopatra a longing look.  “It looked really nice at my old place. Like a little piece of jungle brought right into my bedroom. Exotic, you know?”

“No way,” Bin drapes himself over Myungjun’s back, squeezing him close. “I love you, but that thing,” he jerks his head towards Cleopatra, standing – rather forlornly, Myungjun thinks – in the corner, “it will not leave that spot. Ever.”

“Awww,” Myungjun wriggles in Bin’s hold, trying to turn and face him. “I will feel sad without it when I go to sleep.”

Bin doesn’t relinquish his hold, merely giggles into Myungjun’s ear, “And I will feel safer without it. Plants produce oxygen during photosynthesis but they use it up at night, baby. I don’t like the feeling of being slowly suffocated in my sleep; I like to have the oxygen to myself. And besides, every time I stayed over at your place, it felt like Jungle Book. The leaves were touching my back every time I sat up; having sex there was like fucking Mowgli – please, don’t make me feel like a pervert again.”

Myungjun huffs a little, “Do I look like Mowgli?”

Bin snorts and bites his shoulder, “No, you don’t - although you are as small as him - ” he yelps as Myungjun aims a backwards kick at his shin. “But tough, baby, there will be no overgrown greenery in the bedroom.”

“Fine, whatever, leave poor Cleopatra all alone in the corner,” Myungjun slips out of Bin’s embrace with a pout.

“If I promise to water her and not swear at her, will you stop sulking and give me a kiss?” Bin opens his arms in an invitation, all puppy eyes and a cute smile.

“Maybe,” Myungjun stands still and throws him a coquettish look over his shoulder, then, quick as a flash, sprints towards the front door.

“Oh no, don’t you dare!”

In three strides, Bin catches up with him and presses his back against the heavy front door.

“I deserve a kiss,” Bin giggles as Myungjun tries to push him away but is losing the battle rapidly.

“Not sure you do,” he pants into Bin’s mouth, trying in vain to wriggle out of Bin’s iron grip, “you were mean to Cleopatra.”

“If you breathe one more word about that stupid plant, Junnie,“ Bin pins him harder against the polished wood, laughing, “I swear I will spank your ass.”

“Ooh,” Myungjun’s eyebrows shoot up high, “now that’s new! Are you trying to hint at something, Binnie? A kink that you haven’t told me about yet?”

“Do you think I would wait for two years to spank you if I was into that?” Bin is nosing at his throat and Myungjun feels his legs turning into jelly.

“How should I know? You started about Mowgli today and spank-“

The rest is cut off when Bin grabs the back of his thighs, hoisting him up. “The kiss, Junnie. I’m waiting.”

Myungjun chuckles, squeezing his legs around Bin’s waist, leaning as far as he can, “You need to steal it.”

Without missing a heartbeat, Bin presses their lips together. The door rattles as he pushes Myungjun against it.

“Guys, I can hear you. It’s disgusting.”

“Oh,” Bin pulls back, panting slightly. “I forgot about Rocky.”

Giggling, Myungjun uses the opportunity to slide down and slip past Bin back to the living room.

“Let me in, I can't hold these for much longer!”

Bin sighs and opens the door.

Rocky staggers in with another load of removal boxes and shoots him and unimpressed look, “Could you please wait with the celebratory ‘claiming the territory’ - or whatever that was - until I leave?”

“I don’t need to claim anything,” Bin frowns in confusion. “This is my apartment.”

“Maybe it was Myungjun who was marking it then.”

There is an indignant squeal from the living room. “I was not marking anything, Park Minhyuk, I’m not a dog! I started a perfectly decent conversation; then it all went downhill. Tell Bin to restrain himself!”

Bin snickers and flattens himself against the wall as Rocky pushes past him with the heavy load, then trails behind him along the long hallway, now lined with random collection of things from Myungjun’s apartment.

The pyramid of removal boxes in the living room looks downright menacing.

“How many more still in the van?” Myungjun picks a box named FRAGILE and brings it into the kitchen corner, placing it carefully on the counter.

“Probably six or seven,” Rocky runs both hands through his hair, looking mildly incredulous. “Why do you have so much stuff?”

“Because I have refined taste and like to collect beautiful things,” Myungjun replies, eyebrows arched, the look challenging Minhyuk to say something.

Minhyuk refrains, but only for a second. The temptation is too much. “Do video games and DVDs count as beautiful things?”

‘How dare you?” Myungjun gasps. “Give me a week and you’ll see how I’ll transform this barren place! It needs beauty, it needs a little bit of life!”

He spreads his arms wide and starts dancing around the room.

Minhyuk closes his eyes in quiet exasperation, “Remind me why you’re still with him, Binnie?”

Bin grabs Myungjun’s hand as he swirls past them in a rather wild rendition of a Viennese waltz. He tucks Myungjun to his side and smiles at Minhyuk’s huffy face, “Because he makes me happy.”

“And because he loves fucking me,” Myungjun giggles and Minhyuk gasps in shock.

“Jeez, Junnie,” Bin flushes pink. “Have you started on the beer in the fridge already? You know you can't handle booze on an empty stomach.”

“Nah,” Myungjun waves his hand dismissively. “I just love riling him up. Look how embarrassed he is.”

“I hate you,” Minhyuk looks at Myungjun, eyes narrowed in a passive-aggressive grin.

“I hate you too,” Myungjun grins back contentedly, happy to have achieved his goal, infuriating of mortifying The Rock at least once a day.

For a moment, they both stare at each other silently, then burst out laughing, the happiness bubbling in Myungjun’s chest.

 

_…………………………_

 

“I love you, Junnie.”

Myungjun stretches on the bed, languid, satisfied. He tangles his fingers in Bin’s damp hair and pulls him in for a kiss, “I love you more.”

His bones feel soft and floppy, the marrow turned warm, golden liquid. He breaks the kiss and rolls over, burying his head between his arms, happy, exhausted.

The sweat on their bodies is cooling off and Bin’s finger slides easily across Myungjun’s back, drawing random patterns onto his skin.

“I’m so happy that you are here, Junnie. I can't believe it took you so long to move in with me though.” Bin’s fingers are tracing the bumps of his spine, one by one.

Myungjun turns his head, cheek pillowed against his arms, and looks up at Bin who is watching him like he is the eighth wonder of the universe.

His already flushed cheeks redden a little more, “I didn’t want to… to make it look like I’m sponging off you, Binnie. I’m not a gold-digger.”

Bin’s finger stops somewhere at his lower back. “I know you are not! And I never thought you were, ever.”

“But your friends might have thought that. I was having hard time as it was, to convince Minhyuk I’m not the absolute personification of evil.”

Bin laughs, “Oh god, Minhyuk.  He did give you a hard time at the beginning, I know. But he likes you know.  Could you stop teasing him all the time, baby?”

“But it’s so much fun,” Myungjun pouts. “I used to think he was scary, but he is just a giant marshmallow inside, so easily flustered when you know how; it always makes my day. And today I needed it badly because I was sad. You didn’t let poor Cleopat-“

Bin’s hand lands on his bare ass cheek with a loud slap.

Myungjun yelps, “What was that for? That hurt!”

“It was meant to,” Bin chuckles, voice pleased. “I have warned you. No more talking about that plant.”

Myungjun opens his mouth to protest but Bin flips him over in one swift motion, as if Myungjun was a paper doll, and pins him down. He is still giggling, the hilarity not subsiding one bit, as he bites Myungjun’s shoulder.

“Let me go, you beefcake!” Myungjun thrashes underneath him but it’s a vain attempt to break free; he knows it. Since they have been together, Bin has put on a considerable amount of weight and it’s pure muscle. Myungjun might have had a chance two years ago; right now, all resistance is futile.

“Nope. This is fun.” Bin’s breathy laugh tickles in the crook of his neck. “ Maybe I could get used to it, you know. Spanking and all that.”

“In your dreams. Let me go, you big, muscly…”

“What?” Bin’s whole body is shaking with laughter but he doesn’t budge an inch, his body pressing Myungjun into the mattress, hardly allowing him to breathe, let alone move.

“Let go or I will never cook for you again!”

“Oh.”

In a heartbeat, Bin stops. He lifts himself up on his elbows and eyes Myungjun a little uncertainly. “You wouldn’t do that, Junnie, right?”

“Oh, I would.” The tilt of Myungjun’s chin is defiant, now that he is able to breath again, but his lips are twitching. Bin, for all his bulging muscles, looks at him like a kicked puppy.

“Junnie~~”

“What?” Myungjun is trying really hard not to giggle.

Bin starts peppering his jaw with kisses, “You smell so good.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Myungjun is biting his lips but his body is already shaking with supressed laughter.

“You know your cooking is the best. Better than my mum’s.”  Bin’s lips are sliding down his neck now and Myungjun tilts his head almost imperceptibly but maintains a stony demeanour.

“You are laying it on really thick now, Binnie. Scared of having to live on instant ramen?”

“You wouldn’t do that. You love me,” Bin whines against the hollow of Myungjun’s throat, his breath hot against Myungjun’s skin.

“I'm seriously rethinking my love, now that you’re telling me that you might enjoy spanking my ass.”

“I was just thinking aloud, you know,“ Bin mumbles against his chest. Myungjun can feel the grin in his voice. ‘There is nothing wrong with thinking about spicing up our sex life, you know.”

“There is also nothing wrong with me thinking about not cooking for you anymore.” Feeling Bin’s lips pressed against his sternum, Myungjun knows he is losing the field advantage rapidly, his thoughts getting hazed, fuzzy around the edges.

“Ok, ok, I will never mention spanking or anything BDSM-related, ever. I promise,” Bin chuckles, giving his chest a tiny lick.

Myungjun’s vision is starting to blur. “You still need to make it up to me for that slap,“ he pants, body arching slightly.

“Do I now?” Bin looks up and smirks. It makes Myungjun feel like he’s being undressed although he already is naked from top to toe.

“Oh, I will make it up to you, baby,” Bin’s mouth slides down onto his stomach, “I will.”

 

…………………………..

 

He wakes up in the middle of the night, shaken by the same dream he’s been having for the last two years.

It is always the ice rink.

Bin’s thin body framed in a halo of orange sunset, the hollow emptiness in his eyes.

Myungjun sits up and takes couple of deep breaths. He has learned to live with it by now but he needs couple of seconds to take stock, to make sure it’s not real.

Bin is next to him, sprawled freely across the bed the way he always sleeps, his body reassuringly warm. To ground himself, Myungjun touches the soft skin of his cheek, trying to supress the image that’s still lingering around the edges of his consciousness.

He traces the lines of Bin’s face, marvelling at the way it broadened over the last two years, a tiny bit of flesh finally settling in the hollows of his cheeks.

The warm skin of Bin’s throat is smooth under his fingers as he skims down, palms finding the bulging muscles of Bins shoulders.

He needs to feel the newly-acquired sturdiness of Bin’s body, the proof of their life together for the past two years, a reminder that this is who Bin is now, his body healthy and strong, his smile blinding and carefree, his eyes shining with happiness.

Myungjun does everything to make sure the love of his life never again resembles the thin, starved boy he stood in front of him two years ago, eyes vacant, as if all life has been sucked out of him.

He cooks. Homemade food, simple food, dishes his sister taught him. He wants to make sure Bin eats well. Minhyuk and Lisa often come for lunch on Sundays, even Jungkook and Taehyung sometimes. They eat together, hours of feast stretched blissfully into the late afternoons. Myungjun watches Bin stuff his face like a little chipmunk and simply smiles and fills his bowl again.

He packs snacks for Bin to eat at school, to take with him to the gym, to classes.

The memory of Bin’s starved body from two years ago is almost forgotten.

Almost.

The dream still comes back sometimes but it happens less often now.

Every night, before he goes to sleep, Myungjun conjures images of Bin that he wants to imprint in his mind, things that happened that day, things he wants to remember forever.

He is a collector of beautiful things, he always was – there are pieces of art now in their apartment - but now he also collects memories.

Happy memories.

He has amassed a fair share of them by now and the number is growing every day.

Some of them go like this:

Rattling of Bin’s keys in the lock on weekday nights, his voice  - I'm home, Junnie – the sight of him as he drops his bag on the floor, runs towards Myungjun and scoops him up in his arms, whispering _I missed you_ into his hair.

A Sunday afternoon, Minhyuk and Lisa sitting with them at the table. Bin laughing so hard at something Minhyuk says that he starts choking on his noodles. Minhyuk’s and his own hand shooting up and landing on Bin’s back at the same time. Minhyuk withdraws his hand and smiles at Myungjun over Bin’s head – _you got it_. Bin’s eyes, streaming with tears but laughing at the same time after Myungjun whacks his back so hard he nearly faceplants into the bowl of ramen in front of him.

An afternoon on the beach, Myungjun and Taehyung sitting on the hot sand, beer in their hands, the July sun beating down mercilessly. Bin and Jungkook playing frisbee, Bin’s muscles rippling under his tanned skin and Myungjun getting breathless at the thought of touching them later that night.

The sound of Bin’s voice as he cries out, the beautiful sound echoing in the dark bedroom, his eyes not leaving Myungjun, not even for a second, and they are not empty anymore; they are so much, _so much_.

The beep of Myungjun’s phone at work and a picture of an empty food container appearing on his screen, _it was so good Junnie, I love you!!_

Freezing December air and the feel of Bin’s lips on his, Bin’s hand tugging him urgently to go home after a night out. Stumbling through the glass door into the warmth of their lobby – the night portman glaring at them disapprovingly – Bin’s laugh high-pitched and bubbly, his eyes holding Myungjun’s in the elevator, breathless with anticipation.

Bin’s face against the pillow in the morning, eyes puffy with sleep, blinking at him slowly. “I love you, Junnie, I love you so much.”

 

Those are the memories he wants to treasure, memories he wants to dream about.

 

 

………………………

 

“Why did it have to be today?” Myungsoon eyes the ice rink a little wearily. “I had to leave work early.”

“Sorry, sis.” Myungjun puts on his sweetest, sheepish, little-brother smile. “I thought we could all get into the Christmas mood.”

“It will be so cool,” next to her, Sanha is jumping up and down with excitement. “We haven’t done this for ages! Come on, Mum, it’s gonna be so much fun.”

“Ok, ok,” at least, there is a hint of smile on Myungsoon’s face. “Let’s go and put the skates on.”

Sitting on the bench, Myungjun’s fingers are shaking a little. He watches Sanha babbling something excitedly to his mother but he can barely hear it for the loud thumping of his heart.

He checks his phone. Bin should be here soon.

He finishes lacing up his skates and gives Myungsoon a smile. “Shall we go?”

The rink is busy and they carefully join the cheerful crowd.

Sanha is speeding despite his mother’s protests and Myungjun tries his best to keep up with him.

“Hey, pumpkin, wait. You’re way too fast for me now!”

Sanha slows down and rolls his eyes a little, “Can you not call me pumpkin, please? I’m eleven now.”

Myungjun smiles, grateful he doesn’t need to chase after the boy.

“Of course, Sanha. I forget that you are a big boy now.”

The grin on Sanha’s face is positively dripping with satisfaction, “I will be taller than you soon.”

“Yes, you probably will be,” Myungjun eyes the boy’s tall lanky frame thoughtfully. “ Listen, string bean – see I have a new name for you,” he grins and laughs a little at Sanha’s indignant gasp, “I will go and keep your mum company for a bit.”

He waves in direction of the exit where Myungsoon is hovering a little hesitantly. “We will take it nice and slow and you can speed up now; I’m only slowing you down. When Bin comes, you can race him.”

“Where is he?” Sanha might indeed look like an overgrown bean but his voice is still that of a little boy. “I want Bin to come; he is so much more fun than you.”

“Stop whinging,” Myungjun shoots him a sideways glance, “Bin will be here any minute. And if you keep moaning about how boring I am, there will be no more posters and drawings for you.”

Sanha changes track immediately, “I love you Uncle Myungjun, you are the best.”

‘Yeah, yeah, I can see right through you,” Myungjun gives him a little poke in the ribs. “Now, off you go, Bin will be here soon. I’ll join your mum; she looks a bit sad over there.”

“Ok, Uncle Myungjun!” Sanha shoots off as if his life depended on it.

Myungjun joins his sister who is skating carefully, at a leisurely pace.

“I left him, he is getting too fast for me.”

“That’s ok, he’ll be fine.” Myungsoon giggles and links their hands, “Come on, little brother, I need some support.”

Slowly, they are circling the rink, keeping an eye at Sanha who whizzes past them every once in a while, laughing and trying to tickle his mother or to give Myungjun a shove in his ribs.

Trying to be subtle, Myungjun check his phone but his sister smirks at him immediately.

“Can’t wait?”

He feels his cheeks heat up. Myungsoon is enjoying this; he knows.  His sister and her family have met Bin a year ago, just after they moved in together, and Myungjun could tell Myungsoon approved.

She also hasn’t stopped teasing him about them since then.

Sighing, he stuffs the phone back in his pocket. “He is on his way.”

Myungsoon is about to say something, a cheeky smile on her face, when a tall figure emerges from a mêlée of people near the entrance.

“Junnie!”

Bin skates quickly towards them, panting and looking dishevelled, and so beautiful that Myungjun’s breath hitches a little.

Myungsoon doesn’t pay attention to his gawking and she and Bin greet each other warmly, Bin bowing slightly, still trying to catch his breath.

“Hey,” Myungjun curls into his side briefly, before letting go. “You look like you ran a marathon.”

“The financial analysis seminar ran longer than I thought it would,” Bin exhales loudly. “I had to run for the bus and then I sprinted all the way here from the bus stop.

“You didn’t need to run, Binnie,” Myungjun smiles gently.

Bin pulls him close, ignoring the people around, “But I wanted to be here as fast as I could. I need to head back in half an hour; I had to swap with Minhyuk, I’m teaching the first class today.”

“Oh,” Myungjun looks up uncertainly from where he buried his face into Bin’s coat. “You should have told me; I wouldn’t have dragged you here today.”

“But I really wanted to be here,” Bin’s look is intense all of a sudden. “I know why we came.”

“You know?” Myungjun breathes out.

“I remember, Junnie. Three years ago.” Bin is not letting go of him and Myungjun forgets about Myungsoon with her back turned, watching the skaters and trying to give them some privacy; he forgets about Sanha, circling the rink and probably desperately waiting for Bin to come and join him.  The only thing that matters right now is Bin and his eyes looking at Myungjun; eyes that are not empty anymore, eyes that are shining and bright and _full_.

“Would you have come back to me, even if we hadn’t met here?” Myungjun clings to the lapels of Bin’s coat, casting his eyes down. This is a loaded question but Myungjun has wondered about that for much longer than he cares to admit.

“I don’t know. I mean… maybe? Possibly? God, I don’t know, Junnie. But I'm glad it happened. I’m so glad.” Bin wraps his arms around him and Myungjun lets himself go, melting under Bin’s touch.

“Have you ever regretted it?”

“No.” Bin tilts Myungjun’s face so he can look into his eyes. “Never. I’m so glad you are with me, Junnie.”

Myungjun feels tears stinging in his eyes and blinks them away quickly. “I love you, Binnie.” His body is aching for a kiss but surrounded by swarms of squealing children and hovering parents, he restrains himself.

Bin simply stares at him, face glowing from within, illuminated like he has a Christmas tree stuck inside his chest cavity. “I love you too.”

“Uncle Binnie!”

At a break-neck speed, Sanha barrels into them, full force.

“Hey, big boy,” Bin recovers his balance, steadying Myungjun with his arm. “You have gotten much better at skating, since I last saw you here.”

“You did?” Sanha frowns in confusion. “We never went skating together. I went to the cinema with you and Uncle Myungjun, and to the arcade, and we had a picnic in the park …” He trails off, forehead scrunched, questioning eyes on Bin.

Bin smiles lightly, reassuring, “You probably don’t remember, Sanha. You were eight – and we didn’t come to skate together. I just met you and Uncle Myungjun here.”

Comprehension slowly dawns on the boy’s face, “I know! You… you talked to Uncle Myungjun, I remember that, but… you looked different. And you were sad.”

Over Sanha’s head, Bin and Myungjun exchange a glance.

“It was a long time ago, Sanha,” Bin shrugs a little, keeping his voice light.

“You’re not sad anymore, right?”

“Definitely not,” Bin laughs and winks at the boy, “and right now I want to challenge you to a race!”

Sanha squeals in delight.

“You coming, Junnie?” Bin turns to him, eyes crinkled in a smile so warm, he could probably heat up the whole ice rink with it.

Myungjun shakes his head, ‘You go, guys, I’ll join you in a minute.”

They are gone in a flesh, Sanha trying his best to overtake Bin the moment they start.

Watching them from the edge, Myungjun’ s heart is warm. Bin doesn’t cut Sanha too much slack but he is focused, attentive, not leaving him out of his eyesight.  Myungjun could watch them for hours.

After a while, Sanha starts flagging, panting heavily, his movements becoming more sluggish. Bin slows down and, taking the boy’s hand, they slowly circle back where both Myungjun and Myungsoon are standing, watching them.

“Mum,” Sanha peels away form Bin. “Have you seen how fast I was? Have you seen it?”

“I have, darling,” Myungsoon smiles and pulls her son close for a hug. “You were like a bolt of lightning.”

Bin stops in from of Myungjun.

The orange sunset behind his back is creating a halo around him and he smiles, cheeks flushed pink. “Come on, Junnie, your turn now. I’ll kick your ass.”

Myungjun doesn’t say anything for a moment, simply soaking up the sight.

 

This is the memory he keeps.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> My dear friend Existential_forest really wanted to feature in the story :-)) so I named the band after her. Hope you are happy, mate :-)


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